


Sven

by Ohdotar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Amnesiac Loki, Asgard, Asgardian Magic, Brothers in different settings, Character Development, Dreams, F/M, Fist Fights, Gen, Light Angst, Loki is an idiot, Loki-centric, Memory Loss, More like a retry, Non-Graphic Smut, Not necessarily a restart, Odin's A+ Parenting, Politics, Talk about famine and war, Thor Is Not Stupid, Thor Is a Good Bro, We get to see a place that's not Asgard, Worldbuilding, but later on, everyone is gay for sven and sven is gay for everyone, finnic mythology & folklore, i guess, nordic mythology & folklore, not yet, there will be a lot of OCs but probably no pairings whatsoever, this will probably hurt at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-06-08 09:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 52,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6849544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohdotar/pseuds/Ohdotar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The thing is... that somehow your brother has caused quite a lot of commotion even after his death in Svartalfheim.” Thor didn’t answer, but his eyes narrowed.<br/>“He seems to be quite skilled at evading Hel,” Fandral tried again.<br/>“What are you…?” implying, trying to say, claiming… Thor didn’t finish his sentence and took a step closer. Fandral held back a grimace.<br/>“I am saying that he is very skilled in getting lost on his way there, even though Helvegen is supposed to be a one-way road.” The glare he got from Thor was enough to stop the additional circles he was treading with his words. “As in, apparently he didn’t die.”</p><p>- - -</p><p>Or the fic where Loki has to build up a new identity in the middle of nowhere doing things he has never done before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No Standing Up in the Boat

Ukko kept rowing slowly and hummed a slow tune under his breath. Seawater waved from where the gentle winds blew, parting around the boat. The clouds were a dark grey-blue colour and the heavy, deep sound of thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance, giving promises of rain. Soon the thick, boiling air of the last few days would break and give way to fresher winds. It was good and needed. It meant that spring was slowly becoming an early summer. Faraway banks of small islands let out hushed whispers when wind ruffled the leaves of lithe young birch trees.  
Ukko sat on the bench of his boat, scratching his greying beard thoughtfully, his eyes cast upon the dark clouds and the shimmering stars glittering behind their thinning edges. He thought he heard a loud splash somewhere, but didn't pay any more mind to it. The sea liked to splash, after all.  
The boat glid softly atop the cool, salty waves. Ukko was getting closer to the ends of the open sea that surrounded the islands, which was his very intention. He needed to check if there was any fish caught in the village nets - preferably he would have the work done before the oncoming storm came over the isles.

It was not the first time Ukko had seen a drowned man, not by far. People were prone to accidents on waters. This was a strange trouble, however. There was no boat to be seen, no place for the man to have appeared from, and for a heartbeat Ukko thought that he was looking at a ghost or a foresight. Still, the wet mass of black hair was clearly real and the clothes had a real weight, no matter how brightly starlight glittered on the waves and sparkled around the pale man overboard.  
Ukko grabbed the wooden oars tighter with his weathered hands and rowed closer to the poor soul, all the while being careful not to hit him in the head. If the man was alive, he would not appreciate such harsh handling, and even if he was dead, he would not be pleased about getting punched to the nose with an oar.  
Reaching out and hauling the man up onto his boat as well as he could, the unfortunately long legs and bare feet dangling over the edge, Ukko got his feet wet. Not minding the excess water, his birchwood-twined footwear would survive, he pressed his ear against the man’s chest. He thought he heard a steady heartbeat but he still checked the pale neck and wrist for a pulse, just to be sure.  
Ukko leaned back, giving himself a permission to sigh in relief. He was not responsible for an unknown dead person. He tried to turn the unconscious man around as easily as possible, and after that Ukko hit his wet back gently with his palm to get any possible water out of his throat. Luckily the young man had been floating on his back, and Ukko could only hope that the castaway hadn’t actually inhaled any water.  
The fishnets could wait until tomorrow. And, if tomorrow was going to be too stormy for such things, the day after. 

From somewhere in between the boat's benches, ahead of Ukko as he started rowing again, the younger man let out a wet cough. It was followed by a gasp and an unsteady snorting sound, and they were a surprisingly welcome sign. Wet clothes made odd sloshing sounds, and Ukko could easily hear the stranger moving even if he kept his eyes on the horizon.  
“Well, good afternoon, _sven_. I’m glad to see that you pulled through with just a little scare,” he said. There was some more coughing, which Ukko did not think all that harmful or strange, given the situation he and the wet man found themselves in. Though when the boat suddenly tilted heavily to its starboard side, he stopped rowing and reached to slap the thin man’s arm. A little common sense was to be used every now and then. Ghost or not.  
“You," he said with a stern but calm voice, "no standing up in the boat.” He pulled on the wet sleeve gently. The pale man slumped back down easily, clearly somewhat unsteady on his feet. It seemed like it was the first time he actually noticed Ukko at all and, judging from the frown he wore, Ukko was a confusing sight. No answer, so be it.

Ukko kept rowing and hummed a slow tune under his breath. The young stranger looked at him for a long while, without saying a word.  
“You seem a little pale. You’re not used to swimming, no?” Ukko asked, wrinkles in his forehead deepening. He was already growing somewhat worried. The man just looked around, looking as if he had never even realised that they were on a boat, despite clearly having fallen overboard from one.  
“Why don’t you tell me your name, sven”, Ukko tried gently. It was silent for a while still, and the starry sky was getting clouded more heavily. There was a flash of lightning and Ukko pulled on the oars with more force. It wasn't like he wanted for them both to drown.  
“Well”, Ukko began, weighing his options, “Let’s get you on dry land. And something for you to eat. You must be somewhat light-headed after that dip.” He kept rowing, thunder rumbled again - closer this time. The haggard young man looked at him from under his brow with a very uncertain frown. Ukko rowed and hummed.

_"I am rowing, I am rowing,_  
_I am homeward going._  
_Is the bath-stove lit already,_  
_are the_ vasta _s soft and steamy?_ " 

\- - - 

He could remember the brightness,  
the searing white branches of the Great Oak. 

Or perhaps it was an Ash tree. From ash it certainly rose, high above, to the skies.  
It spread its branches wide, blocked the sun and the moon and all starlight that had ever shone, and it felt like the tree was all he had ever seen. 

He must have come from the stars himself, otherwise he would not be looking at them and thinking back, while falling further away from the silent fluttering of the noble tree. That is how it must have been, surely.  
Thoughtful clouds the colour of eggwhite told him he must have had already passed through a colourful layer of sky, or two, or perhaps even three or six. That meant he had entered a place of earth and air, and he was not exactly sure if he was dreaming or not.

It felt vaguely familiar, in an odd and slightly distressing way. It was a tingling feeling at the edges of his senses, and he was almost certain he would get hurt soon.  
Was it new?  
Perhaps not.

Should he have been more worried?  
Perhaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!
> 
> This story is the result of awaiting and living through a nice (but rainy) Nordic summer and fearing for the coming slippery winter. Farm Boy!Loki ahead, you're welcome.  
> The chapters will be long and there will be a lot of worldbuilding, but at least I've got some nice feedback about it! Mixing Marvel with folkore is a surprisingly nice combo.
> 
> English is not my native language, so please, tell me if you spot any grammar/spelling mistakes.


	2. You Poor Silly Lad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just shut up and eat, you're obviously not fit to speak just yet.

The smell of rain hung sharp in the air before the weather itself had a chance to shift. Water lapped against the rocky seastrand, painting the stones in shady grey and dark red colours while the wide, low-hanging sky was losing its colour altogether. The brown and blue wild ducks hid themselves deep inside the rushes.  
If the oncoming storm had had a voice, it would’ve whispered _‘hush, just wait,’_ and, after that, it would’ve told you _‘I’m coming’_. There was no reason to not believe it.  
“We’re there soon, lad. You can already see the island,” Ukko said in passing and kept on rowing. Rain made the shallow waves ripple when it first started to fall, and in no time the sound of soft drizzle was filling the entire world with a steady pitter-patter. 

The oars were growing wet in Ukko's hands but he could already see the bottom of the seashore, so he lowered them inside the boat and jumped off. The silent stranger startled slightly before realising that there was no danger of Ukko drowning himself. Water barely reached to his knees.  
“Jump down from there,” Ukko instructed with a wave of his hand and took hold of a thick lead rope tied at the boat’s head. The rainfall was growing more intense, and he could feel the droplets hitting his forehead and shoulders hard. They would be wet all over before even getting to the house.  
“Help me drag this up so the sea will not steal it,” he told the thin man and tugged the boat. It was a victory to see the wet and shaken wretch to actually nod and scramble out of the boat with a splash, despite the wild look in his eyes.  
“Grab that end, you look like a tall enough fellow to lift it up,” Ukko said. “Wouldn’t want to hit the bottom to those rocks and break it, would we now,” he added with a smile behind his beard. For a moment the poor man looked so lost that Ukko felt his own face falling, too. Luckily, he seemed to realise what was being asked of him and tried his best to get a hold of the boat’s rear. The following stumble was not very elegant, not with Ukko’s faster and steadier pace and the other man’s unsteady slipping on the wet stones, but eventually they managed to get the boat up on the shore, and a good ten strides away from the water. Ukko turned the boat over to prevent rainwater from filling it and hid the oars beneath it.  
“Thank you, sven. Now, let’s get you inside so you don’t catch a cold out in this weather,” he said and pushed the man gently towards a well-worn path climbing up from the short stretch of low-lying seashore. He looked rather confused again, so Ukko looked at him and waited.  
“You are welcome,” the man rasped out, slightly late in regards to the actual thanks. Ukko was surprised, but gave the pale thing a relieved smile.  
“So you speak, after all. Good. I was already growing worried that you had hit your head in a worse manner,” he said and sighed. For a while they stood in silence, but, as Ukko looked at the bare feet in front of him and the raindrops grew heavier and more frequent, he sobered up again.  
“Now, up the hill you go, let’s not stand here when the rain starts falling like someone tipped a bucket over.”

\- - -

The silence was loud and he couldn’t really feel his feet or fingers. All he could hear was the soft scrunching sound from under the old man’s wet shoes. At least his thoughts were starting to clear slightly.  
He suspected that they were shoes, even though he couldn’t remember ever seeing shoes as ugly and clumsy as the pair in question.  
Wet strands of hair clung to his forehead in a tangled mess and the wet hillside was slippery under his bare feet. The man said something, but he couldn’t quite catch the words or understand their meaning. What language did the man even speak? What did he speak himself?  
Why did he have no shoes on? It was difficult to walk the muddy path without. The grey-headed man seemed to have no trouble whatsoever, even though shoes were usually supposed to be leather. Or that was what he felt like they should be - these were more like baskets woven from thin strips of wood.

“In you go, sven,” the man told him, and he understood. And again, there was the odd little word the man kept adding in between his words, when he addressed him. The feeling was so odd that it took a moment before he remembered to nod slowly and step through the open door, bowing his head down to fit through the low doorway. He felt clumsy, but luckily the old man had to do the same - not as much, but still.  
A colourful but dusty little carpet was soft under his feet. The house smelled of old wood, when he stepped inside, and of fire and embers, as he took in his surroundings. A small front room with a wooden table and two long wooden benches around it. There were things of different shapes and sizes, the functions of which he couldn't even begin to guess, leaning on and hanging along the walls. A small window looked out to the front yard, another one to the back.  
“This is the hall, and that is my wife, Rauni,” the old man said to him, pointing somewhere. It did not sound right. Hall was a word that rang like a sky-high ceiling and large, tall windows, and a gleaming golden  
something.  
Or perhaps it had been just a flame. Perhaps he had only been smaller once.  
The thought escaped, and he couldn’t grasp the shadow of a memory anymore. 

“And this young man is?” a stern but curious voice asked. There was a woman dressed in white and brown, looking at them from behind a large stove.  
She did not have shoes on. Not inside the house, apparently, since the old man took his odd wet pair off before stepping further inside.  
“I caught him instead of fish on my way to try the nets. He was in the water and left his wits there for a while. Then the rain came down”, the man said and pointed at him. He followed the words carefully, and while they felt strange, he was getting used to the way they were said. The couple turned to look at him and he stood in silence - dripping wet, soaked through and through, and staining their carpet with his muddy feet. It was bad, though he couldn’t quite point out why.  
He should’ve been cleaner. He should’ve had shoes on.  
“I apologise. Good evening,” he said carefully. Was that what he was supposed to say? The old couple stared at him with nearly identical expressions of intrigue, and eyes the age of which he couldn’t estimate. He felt as though he had accidentally swallowed something big.  
It was silent, for a while, and he straightened his back slightly. Out of habit, though he couldn’t remember the last time he would have needed to do so.

“Well, sit down, you poor silly lad,” the woman exclaimed. “Ukko will get you a dry shirt for the night and you will bathe after you’ve had something to eat,” she snapped, and almost sounded angry. He frowned slightly, and even though he could not place the feeling he knew that it was not unfamiliar to be snapped at. But she did not seem to be angry at him in particular.  
“Tell me your name, sven,” she said, shooing the man called Ukko out of the way. She turned away to the stove, stirring a pot of something, and looking back at him with her brows raised in question.  
Slowly sitting down on the wooden bench next to the table, he realised that the odd little word had only ever been a substitute.  
“Sven,” he thought aloud before realising it. His tone must have been as confused as he felt, since the woman stopped her stirring.  
“Yes, I asked you your name,” she said, searching for cutlery. He looked at his pale hands in silence, and couldn’t figure out to whom they belonged to. He tried - he knew that they were _his_ , after all - but there was no name he could link them to. No place they might have fitted into and no deeds they might have done.  
“I would like to tell it,” he said, but interrupted himself. It could not be true, could it? He didn’t even believe himself, why should the old woman be any more lenient towards him. He kept his back straight.  
“But?” the woman asked, placing a bowl full of something in front of him. Rauni was her name - she had a name. The food smelled good. He could hear floorboards creaking when Ukko returned. He had a name too.  
“I would like to tell it if I could only... remember what it is,” he admitted, even the last blood draining from his face. His hair was starting to curl at the ends when it was slowly turning from thoroughly wet to only slightly wet.  
He looked up from his hands, unsure, both avoiding and wanting to return the shocked stares he was getting. It was a somewhat frightening notion.

“Alright. Eat your stew, sven, and then Ukko will show you the sauna behind the stable,” Rauni said after having exchanged long looks with her husband. She didn't look angry anymore, rather just worried.  
“We’ll discuss this after we’ve made sure that you will not freeze to death or catch an illness.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow and steady, trying the ice with this new setting, posting a pretty quick update to get this going. Thanks for the couple of kudos! Please, let me know what you think.  
> \+ please, also tell me if you spot any grammar/spelling mistakes, this has not been read through or corrected before posting
> 
> "Sven is a Nordic first name, which itself is Old Norse for a young man or a young warrior" says Wikipedia. In (a little outdated) modern Swedish it also means a squire or a page boy or just some kind of lad in general.  
> When combined with other words, it can mean any sort of young male tasked with different things, for example _ridsven_ , "riding sven" or a knight's attendant; _körsven_ , "driving sven" or a young man in charge of a carriage; or _drängesven_ "dräng-sven" or a young farm helper.


	3. No memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So what did actually happen?   
> (You've only got yourself to blame)

The shower of rain hit hard against the small building’s roof, resulting in muffled pattering and humming sounds that seemed to wrap the entire place up in a soft blanket. The stove sizzled and snapped calmly, but other than that the tiny sauna building was silent and calm. It was a safe, secluded spot, tucked away in such a corner of the farmyard that it looked away to the horizon and over the dark sea.

“If it gets too hot, come out before you faint in there. I think you will be able to handle this,” Ukko checked for the third time, setting the bucket of cold water on the elevated bench inside the bathing room of the small sauna. He could have stayed for sauna, too, but the younger man seemed to need some time alone to sort out his thoughts, and Ukko happily granted it to him.  
“You sit on the bench, sven, toss water on those rocks that are piled on the stove and repeat after the steam settles. Wash yourself afterwards - there’s a towel with those clothes. All is well?” he asked. The tall, narrow man gave a nod that was of a more firm sort than the previous one.  
“And behave yourself, or else the caretaker will be very upset,” Ukko added, and with another nod - a more hesitating and curious one - the younger man seemed to dismiss him.

“I am very thankful,” he said, “for your hospitality,” before Ukko stepped out of the door and back into the rain. The rushing sound returned in full force. The heavier scent of smoke and burning wood mixed with wet earth and Ukko lifted the oiled woollen blanket above his head, turning to look at the poor fellow - he was like a dog dunked in a river.  
“You’re welcome. Though you should thank Rauni, she seems to like you,” Ukko replied with a small shrug.   
“Come back to the house when you’re ready, so we can talk some more,” he added and jerked his head to the right direction before turning to leave. “You must be far from home, with that fancy accent of yours.”

\---

The heat of the small bathing room left his limbs heavy and light at the same time, and his thoughts became even more jumbled than they were before. Not that it really mattered when his few thoughts were already starting to repeat themselves as soon Ukko had left. It was Ukko, wasn’t it? 

His arms and legs were red from the hot steam and he suspected that his face must have been the same. Sadly, the off-white shirt likely wouldn’t help. The shirt was clean and felt comfortable against his skin, but it was too wide and had slightly too short sleeves. He would have liked them to be longer to help hide the strange red and blue bruising around his wrists. He would have liked to know who made them so. And why.   
The wet clothes he had worn before washing himself must have been his own, because they fit him like they had been specifically tailored to his measurements. Or maybe they had just been soaked through and that was the reason the tunic had clung to his shoulders and the breeches to his legs. He wrapped them inside the grey linen towel and gathered the bundle in his arms, carefully opening the door and taking a peek outside. 

It was still raining heavily, and the young weeds and grasses around the farmyard were gleaming and shaking underneath the pouring water. Lightning flashed suddenly and bleached his vision for a short while before the dark grey and deep green returned.  
If he was quick, he could probably reach the house without getting _too_ wet.   
As he rushed barefoot across slippery clovers and the wet ground, he could hear the sound of thunder rolling in the distance.

\- - - -

Loki kept his gaze steady and his mouth shut as five einherjar dragged him forward, doing his best not to stumble while he was bound and being pulled to every direction. The handcuffs dug into his wrists uncomfortably and Bifröst’s harsh light blinded his eyes, more so than usual. He could already hear and feel its humming beneath his feet in an overwhelming flood, though he suspected that it wouldn’t be a problem any longer.  
They hadn’t even let him wear proper shoes and his hair was a mess. What a lovely farewell. It almost made Loki smile when he was forcefully pulled forward again.  
“I am capable of walking on my own, there’s no need to actually carry me around,” he hissed to the man squeezing his arm, but tried to keep his brows raised and his lips curled upwards. “You do realise that, don’t you?” Loki teased, knowing full well that it would not help him one bit. The man glared at him, but only briefly.  
Yet, perhaps the situation could have been more fun if the stiff guards had disobeyed their commands and punched him in the nose after all. Odin’s face would have been a sight to see - Loki could almost hear the disbelieving snort.   
‘We can see the palace gates from here, it is not a long journey,’ Odin would have said, perhaps with a desperate wish to get rid of him. ‘Being that infuriating must be hard, even for one like you,’ he might have said, and looked down at Loki from where he would be standing next to Heimdall.  
Odin might have even laughed, being the bitter old man he was.

“As the reigning king of Asgard I, Odin Allfather, accuse you of high treason,” was what greeted Loki when he stumbled into the observatory after a particularly hard shove. He straightened his back quickly and cocked his slightly to the side to feign disinterest, but looked Odin in the eye. It was cool and collected. Neither angry nor disappointed.  
“Do you have anything to say to defend yourself?” Odin asked, and he almost seemed bored. The calm look in his pale eye said ‘I told you this would happen,’ and his grip on Gungnir was relaxed. Loki was starting to get angry himself. Angry and disappointed.  
“There is no use wasting my words, given that you have never listened to anyone but yourself,” he ground out. Odin barely nodded.  
“You no longer deserve the titles which you have been given. You are no longer a prince of Asgard, and you will be banished from this realm. Its citizenship is hereby denied from you with these free men to witness,” Odin said, and something in his voice brought forth an old memory of watching the rain outside of a tall window. ‘It’s raining,’ Odin had said. Still, it was less than he had expected.  
“Oh, but you seem to be in a good mood,” he said, and regretted it immediately when the previous glaring einherji shook him violently. Odin stepped down from the elevated centre of the observatory and stopped in front Loki, close enough to reach him with his staff but far enough that Loki’s bound hands could not reach him. For a while it was very silent.  
Loki pulled his hands slightly against the handcuffs. Even if his wrists were going to bruise, he was glad to have something to keep his attention. And at least he would remember what kind of torture dealing with Odin was.   
“Despite having seen so much of myself in you, you no longer belong to the line of my fathers and are not of Asgard. You have never been claimed by Jötunheim as one of their own. You are an outlaw, now. No-one’s son,” Odin said, and this close Loki could see underneath the stoic mask the man wore - and oh, he was angry after all. It was like looking into distance and seeing a faraway flash in the pale grey horizon. Thunder would only roar after what seemed like ages, but it was still there.  
Good. They were on the same page. 

“I have never been of your line. You have certainly made it clear as day, with how you chose to raise and shape me,” Loki spat from between his thin lips. With these free men to witness.   
“Silence!” Odin’s grip on Gungnir tightened when he raised his voice. Loki knew it was coming, and it still felt like a cold slap against his face.  
“Not only are you a traitor to your home and kin, but you are also _an ungrateful, greedy thing_ , incapable of realising the seriousness of your actions!” the Allfather continued loudly, and Loki blinked once in surprise. He said nothing. He couldn’t think fast enough to make up anything clever.  
“You are to be banished!” Odin snapped again, “And stripped of your powers so you cannot cause harm until you realise that you brought this upon yourself.” Loki had to bite on his tongue to keep himself from saying anything before thinking.   
“And how are you planning on doing that?” he asked, growing impatient and anxious with the wait. “I have no source of power other than myself! You cannot simply toss away some ancient trinket and wish to remove my magic with it -”  
“Do not. Speak!” Odin barked out. Loki flinched and dodged when Gungnir suddenly almost hit his left eye, but tried to regain his composure when he saw that it was only a threat of worse to come. Odin looked at him with stern eye, and Loki could see the storm approaching. He glared at the old bull-headed man from under his brow, but kept his mouth shut. For now. The soft exhale made Odin grant him a self-satisfied little smile.   
Of course Loki knew that he had got away with a lot of things, many more than he ever should have. There was no need to gloat over his ever-turning luck.

“Your powers cannot be taken from you in the way they can from many others. But do not think that you are invulnerable,” Odin said and lifted his bearded chin.  
‘I’m closer to that point than most,’ Loki almost said in return.   
“This is hardly the easiest place to clean if you plan on beheading me,” he said instead, muttering under his breath. It wasn’t much of a save, as Gungnir was very close to his eye again, and he had to tilt his head away.   
“Which is exactly why that is not going to happen,” Odin replied and took a deep breath to continue. Loki couldn’t help it any longer. His wrists were starting to hurt from how he kept twisting them against his bonds.  
“Get on with it, you wood-headed, hellish goat!” he snapped, cutting Odin off, “You certainly know how to stall, and I cannot stand listening to your voice any longer. However you plan to get rid of me, do it already!”  
And in no time the large, weary hands - which he could still remember having held him much gentler, many long years before - were grabbing the collar of his tunic tightly and yanking him forward with force. He felt colour draining from his face.  
“ _Flyting_ with me, boy, is not a battle you want to start! I would lash you so that there was nothing left but a _standing husk of reeds after winter breeze_!” he nearly roared into Loki’s face, “You will never see this world again, and you will never again call it your home! Your power will remain all around you, as it has always been, but you will _never reach it again_!” Loki could feel himself being pulled to different directions, and heard the hard shackles being opened, before he felt another forceful shove forward. He was pushed closer to the observatory portal itself, and Heimdall unsheathed his sword.  
At that point it was already rather easy to admit that he might have miscalculated. The Odin of his earlier thoughts laughed again, with an overjoyed 'did I not warn you of your foolishness?'

“Your memories,” the real Odin said softly, but in a low voice so hateful that Loki didn’t think he had ever heard such. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach when he registered the words. He didn't want to believe them.  
“Every last piece of who you truly think you are, deep inside your _rotten little skull_ , will be taken away from you -”  
“That is against your own laws,” Loki said slowly, feeling something close to panic rising in his chest. Traitors were to be killed, maybe tortured a little, and he knew the laws like the back of his hand. But even a traitor of highest level was not to be... erased. Not like this.  
“Which only apply to those who are under their protection,” Odin said, and Loki couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around what he was hearing anymore.   
“And that will no longer mean you. No longer will you have a name with which to call yourself. You will be no-one from nowhere, and if anyone asks, you will have no family and no home,” the Allfather slowly said, stressing every syllable, and Loki still felt as though he couldn’t understand a word of what was being said. A disgusting feeling ran down his spine and forced him to ball his hands into tight fists to keep himself from squirming.   
“You will neither know how to harness your magic with seiðr and spells, nor remember its existence. There will be no more Loki Silvertongue, and not a skywalker nor a spellmaster. There will be no more Loki at all.”  
“You revolting _swine of a niðing_ are without a doubt the worst creature to ever have walked on this clump of mud,” Loki replied silently, with as stable a voice as he could manage, and tried to keep from swallowing too loudly.  
He tried to enjoy the final snap of anger in Odin’s eyes, as the old man slammed Gungnir into Bifröst in place of the sword Heimdall was still holding. He really tried. It was harder than he would have thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flyting is a term for exchange of insults as a competitive sport or a form of duelling. It is very popular in folk poems, such as Eddic verses.   
> Niðing is a tricky word to translate, and is most easily explained as a viking insult that is a hybrid of a criminal, a coward and an honourless bastard.
> 
> So here, this is the third chapter and the proper basics of this little plot are finally laid out. I did not have anyone check this for spelling errors, so if you spot any, let me know.  
> I didn't originally plan to include this flashback here yet, but maybe it's better to just get over with it as soon as possible, seeing as it would be a really weird break somewhere in the middle.  
> Odin is a difficult one to write. Together with Loki even more so. I might have overdone it a little. Oh, well.
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please, leave a comment so I can hear your opinion!


	4. Onions Tend to Do That to People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The evening and the morning, and sounds a peafowl makes when it lets out a loud mewl.

’“So you don’t know who you are.”  
“No, I’m afraid. And if I knew where I came from, I would tell you. I would hate to be… an inconvenience.”  
Rain hit hard against the small windows in both ends of the hall and it was dark outside. The piece of bread which he had been given was dark as well, hard and chewy, and he ended up more or less just staring at the thing and turning it around this way and that in his hands. He hoped that it wouldn’t be bad in the eyes of his hosts.  
The room filled with a thoughtful silence. Rauni had lifted his green and drenched tunic to dry on a thin pole that was fixed below the ceiling. Dried herbs and more bread hung from the pole next to the piece of clothing. There was also a long hoop of leather thrown over it, though he didn’t know what it was supposed to be used for.  
“That is a fine shirt, sven, the one you brought with you,” Ukko said, but didn’t ask the question that was clearly hiding behind his words.  
“May well be,” he replied to the older man who was watching him closely.  
“Not one for outdoor work. You sound like a scholarly fellow, too.”  
“Perhaps.”  
He wasn’t sure what was being implied so he couldn’t give a better answer. He hadn’t thought about outdoor work before, and had no idea what was included. Neither did he know what it meant to be _a scholarly fellow_ , but for a fraction of a second he thought he knew the sound a book made when it was being leafed through.  
There was a warm golden hue in the wood of the sturdy dining table, grey in the walls and floorboards. The ashen remains of the fire from earlier kept crackling in the fireplace of the large stone-built stove. He liked the soft snapping sound, because it helped him fill the silence between his repeating thoughts.  
He knew that he was being looked at even when he paid his own attention elsewhere. Ukko had crossed his arms and was leaning against the table from across it, looking at him with something that might have been curiosity. His own hands looked pale and thin next to Ukko’s, even though they were larger in size.

“Rauni and I talked about this while you were in the sauna. We could always use some help on the fields, and another young pair of hands wouldn’t be a bad addition,” Ukko told him, and he saw the strange, slightly pinched expression again. Concerned looks, that’s what they were. The soft tone seemed to touch some old hollow inside of him, and suddenly he realised that they were talking to him like one would to a child.  
He had been a child once, he was almost certain of it. Nevertheless, it didn’t make him feel any less disturbed by the fact. He felt stupid, horribly so, and embarrassed, somewhat less. Did he sound like a child?  
It took him a while to realise that there had been another secret question hidden beneath the calm statement. What it was, he didn't know. He didn’t know how to answer.  
“I apologise, I... I do not understand what you mean.”  
There was a short, soft silence, during which Rauni sighed, running a hand through her loosely tied greying hair. She looked at him with a slight frown and he looked back at her, not knowing if the exhausted look was because of him or because of the situation. He hoped for the latter.  
“You can stay here until you know what to do. There’s a side-room with the stable that’s been practically unused for a long while already,” she said. Ukko nodded gently and looked at him with raised brows. He was stunned into silence for a good while.  
“We’ve had helpers here before, and you wouldn’t be intruding.”  
“...I am to work for you,” he asked the older man without really _asking_ anything, after having heard Ukko use a similar tone twice already. It seemed like a useful way of conversing.  
“Yes. For us and with us, and for your own good as well. It doesn’t have to be permanent.”  
His slight frown must have been a visible change to his expression, because the steady looks Ukko and Rauni wore turned even more concerned. Somewhere between the dark clouds outside another flash of lightning turned the world white. Thunder rumbled closer that time. He didn’t know what to say or if he should say anything. He wasn’t able to form an opinion on the matter.

“I… thank you. I really don’t know what I should say.”  
“You sleep on it, sven, and in the morning you can look around and think about it. Help Rauni make lunch in the morning and check the animals with me in the afternoon.”  
“You must be tired already. I made a bed for you in the corner here so you don’t have to go outside in that horrible weather again.”  
A thick-looking pile of blankets and linen waited for him in the far end of the hall. They were neatly stacked on a wide bench that might have been a little too short for him. The bread was alright when chewed enough and he tried to finish it to be polite. To not seem like he was too young and thoughtless.

\- - -

The air was cool, the blankets warm. Soft and silent as the sunshine on his cheeks. He woke up to an uncomfortable feeling in his back, or perhaps due to sounds of soft but busy footsteps that filled the room. He opened his eyes groggily and something told him he should have known where he was. The dark room and the bright windows were familiar, but his head felt heavy.  
“Sven,” someone said and he realised that he was adressed with a voice he knew, “You ought to get up by now. I’ll be out and away for a while so you can see what tasks Rauni comes up with. She went to milk the goats,” Ukko said to him and not only did he remember the man, but also his wife. It was a small victory, although the only thing he could come up with as a reply was a muffled groan.  
He was sore all over and not quite awake yet. And he had absolutely no idea who he was. Was the beginning of a new day always such a disaster?

“Eat something. Then we can go and get some more water from the well and see if there’s anything in the garden,” Rauni told him when he got up. He didn't feel like disobeying the request.  
She seemed like a busy woman at first, but the longer he looked at her bustling about the less she actually seemed to be in a hurry. It was perhaps more of a practiced ease than a will to be efficient. She even hummed silently to herself as she did her chores. With her beaked nose she almost reminded him of a b… a bird?  
He sat up straighter to look outside, where it wasn’t raining anymore, and try if he could see any birds from the window. He could hear them, that was for sure.  
Even though she had stern features and high cheeckbones which were not softened by age - nor by a beard, like Ukko’s - it was clear that she was a joyful person. It was visible in her sharp eyes and the great care she took in her carefree way of doing things.  
Like carrying things in and out while he sat at the breakfast table. He was eating bread again, even harder and darker than what he’d had in the evening, more like a hard… cracker or crispbread, probably. It had an odd bittersweet taste. There was also a bowl of thick porridge. For some reason the amount of food seemed very small. Then again, he was the only one to wake up this late.  
He wanted to be of use, not a burden, so he got up.

\- - -

The table in the hall was covered in all kinds of pots and pans, and the young man did little but stare at them with an angry little frown. Rauni uncovered the dried peas she had left to soak yesterday and started searching for a ladle and a good knife for the vegetables.  
“What will this all be?” she heard him ask, and when she returned to the table he was holding an onion in his hand like he had never seen one. Rauni put the thick knife on the table and went to the stove to check if it was already getting hot enough. The wood let out a whistle in the fire box.  
“We’re going to make pea soup,” she said. It would’ve been good for the lad in his previous life, too, since he looked like a dried stick in the wind. Not that Rauni was going to say it out loud to the poor thing - he seemed like a proud sort of fellow.  
“...how are we going to do it?” he asked with the faint foreign lilt of his that she had already heard yesterday. A fancy one, too.  
“We’re going to boil water with the peas in it, chop some onion and carrot, add them in with some lard and let it cook for a good while,” she told him, “But not before we… could you sit down for a moment?” she continued after trying to reach the silly height of his head. She got a quick glance in her direction, but he obeyed soon enough and sat on the edge of the bench.  
“We have to do something with your hair - I sure don’t want a long black hair on my plate. Would be easier if it was a bit shorter, don’t you think,” she huffed. Before she had a chance to grab his hair, however, he flinched away with a loud clank of bench legs against the floor. 

For a while it was very silent. She stood with her hands directed towards him and he sat in a crouched position with his own hands in his hair. The silence stretched and he slowly straightened his back, finally breaking the tension with a clearing of his throat. Rauni lowered her hands and tapped him softly on his upper arm.  
“That was a bit of a fright.”  
“It was unintentional,” he apologised slowly, his back straight and tense. “But I don’t want it to be cut. It may… I think I should leave it be as it is.” Rauni frowned slightly, but tried to smooth out her expression when he looked at her again with his own brows lifted. He had the eyes of a sad mule and she didn’t feel like arguing against them.  
“Your hair? Well, I’m not going to force you into anything. It will get in the way, though,” she shrugged to get a confirmation. He nodded and let out the breath he had held.  
“But I have to tie it somehow, I still don’t want your loose locks in my soup,” she added and went to fetch a piece of string from her cupboard. Luckily he laughed a little - a small and unused sound, but a laugh nonetheless - and let her plait his hair in a simple braid. She gave him the knife and the onion and told him to cut it into fine pieces after peeling it. Then she turned her own attention to peas and carrots. 

It all went well until the knife clattered on the table. He let out a loud sob and then audibly tried to hide and swallow it.  
“What happened?” she inquired calmly. He let out a keen that sounded like a peahen.  
“Noth- nothing. I was only... I did nothing,” he tried to mumble but had to pause to wipe his eyes and his running nose. Rauni watched as the man sat down, blinking rapidly and trying to breathe again.  
“Don’t worry. You were chopping the onions?” she asked. He kept nodding while trying to control the tears that were still pooling in his eyes.  
“I apologise for the fuss, I have no idea what is the cause for this,” he tried to assure her quickly, and she lifted her hands to calm him down.  
“It’s an onion, sven,” she explained, hoping that the nickname Ukko had used would calm him down more, “Onions tend to do that to people.”

He blinked slowly, growing more confused by the second. He looked like he didn’t understand what she said.  
“Granted, that must be a very fierce onion to have you drying like this, but if you didn’t know that onions make you cry, you probably haven’t been around them much.”  
“...onions make people cry? Why?”  
“When they’re not cooked, yes. Because they're feisty little things. It will pass when we add the chopped pieces to the soup, don't you worry, because then they can no longer sting your eyes with their nasty paws” she promised him. He looked at her for a moment.  
“You are making fun of me,” he snorted.  
“Just a little bit to get you out of that shock,” she admitted with a smile. He replied with a slight grin of his own, even though it looked rather miserable with his red cheeks and teary eyes.  
“Would you prefer doing the carrots?” Rauni offered. He shook his head and sighed.“No, I think I can handle the onion. I have only got half of it left,” he laughed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this took a longer while than I thought it would, but I managed it nonetheless. Writing Rauni proved helpful - she is a precise lady who wants to keep the story going on.  
> I'm probably the world's worst onion-crier. Even garlic makes me bawl my eyes out.


	5. Cattle island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did you say 'a scholar'? And other questions. Also, humming Einar.

The spring weather seldom was anything stable or predictable, and as it was, the morning was serene and silent after the nightly claps of thunder. The reeds which surrounded the shores were like a field of thick grass and the flaxen tufts of a filly’s mane. In the wind they rippled like a green ocean, together with the shallow seawater from which they grew.  
“Mm… From the sea, you say.”  
“Yes, Einar. I don’t know, he could have just as well dropped from the sky from the looks of it. What’s your opinion?” A hushed gust of wind had the green waves hissing and whispering beneath its gentle brush.  
“Mh... I don’t _have_ an opinion.” Pale grey clouds were like a blanket of swan down and Ukko sighed. He didn’t have one for himself, either. He grabbed the oars and lifted them over the boat’s sides and back into the water again.  
“But it’s good with you?”  
“Yuh. As long as it will be good with him”, Einar said, looking out to the sea.  
“Well, I had better get home. I left him there with Rauni,” Ukko sighed. “I’ll send him here in a week’s time. Thank you.” The wind picked up again and seemed to awaken from its morning slumber. Einar gave him a nod, his longer, bushier beard shaking with the gesture.  
“Mhm... It will rain.”  
“And a good thing it is that it will.”  
“Well, you wouldn’t be satisfied even if it was another thunder-shower.”  
“No,” Ukko laughed as he made the first pulls with his oars to get away from the wonky pier. He started rowing back home, humming to himself - a low tune that rumbled softly through his chest like an echo of the clouds above.

* * *

The pot of soup bubbled and simmered silently beneath its lid as Rauni told him about making the odd bread - apparently some sort of starter dough, ‘a root’ for sourdough, was needed, and it all sounded rather disgusting and difficult. It did clear the reasons behind the odd thickness and stiffness of the final loaves though. Besides, it proved to be a good way of spending time, since he hadn’t even had time to realise how long they had been sitting around the hall and setting the table before there was a sound at the door and Ukkos steady voice called out.  
“I see that you two have been busy,” Ukko said and smiled when he stepped inside. Rauni huffed a little laugh.  
“Yes, and you have been off somewhere while we two did all the work. It’ll be your turn tomorrow,” she said. “Now, sit down you two. We’ll have nothing done if we just stand around all day. This young man was an enormous help, all things considered. Kvass or milk, sven? I didn’t boil any water to clean it up.”  
And so there was bread and pea soup and thick-tasting small beer served with Rauni’s straight-on-point, almost thankless, way of giving compliments. Not that he was particularly hungry in any sense of the word - more exhausted than anything else - but it all felt alright. The soup was strange and tasted bland, but the diced onion and carrot helped the problem somewhat.  
“So, I went to see Einar,” Ukko paused his eating, “They are starting on the ceiling of the new house. Maybe tomorrow or in a few days,” he said, steering the topic away from vegetables and the weather. The older man looked at him and pointed at him with his spoon. There was a heavy tap against the window and he turned to look at the direction before the spoon waved again.  
“It’s raining again, sven. Listen, Einar is a friend of mine, lives close by. I told him you’re a tall fellow and he was more than happy when I told him you’d be helping the rest of the boys out. Nothing scary, just lifting some wood and holding it in place from one end while someone else hammers in the nails. Are you alright with that?”  
He frowned. Building a house sounded very complicated as he looked at the rather open, rough ceiling of the hall. The thought rang in his head with a very hollow sound. Hammering, however, brushed against something and had a small momentary twitch appear in the muscles in his side. He didn’t know why. It was not a comfortable feeling, and luckily it passed quickly. He sat up straighter again.  
More droplets were hitting the window with increasing frequency. He had stopped bringing the spoon to his lips some time ago without even noticing. Ukko looked at him with curious eyes.  
“What do you think?” Ukko asked him. He regained his composure as best he could and nodded slowly. In all truth, he hadn’t even thought about other people who might be living somewhere near. Hadn’t thought there would even be anyone. As ar as he could remember, the sea had been very empty. Then again, he couldn’t really remember anything from that night except being wet through and through, and dragging the boat up on the shore. Understanding Ukko’s words.  
“How far exactly is ‘close by’, if you don’t mind me asking?” he managed without having to clear his throat. Ukko stood up and turned away - _what?_ \- but soon returned with a large, framed piece of paper. He looked at the picture when Ukko laid it down on the table. A drawing of sorts, and it had a wide, intricate red-and-white border that looked like woven wool. Perhaps it was holding the thing there, inside the frame. Rauni scoffed softly, seemingly unhappy about such big interruptions on her lunch table, but said nothing.

“Is that a ...map?” he asked when he finally understood what he was looking at. There was the sharp edge of… perhaps a coastline, in the far western side. A lot of small fish-like scribbles here and there, and in the middle he could see a scattered group of perhaps a dozen small islands.  
“Yes. Looks like you’ve seen one before, then,” Ukko smiled. He returned the smile somewhat half-heartedly, unable to give a proper answer to the older man. The biggest islands were cluttered closely together but there were also many smaller islets around them. He couldn’t make out their names.  
He really couldn’t.  
“This is where we are,” Ukko said and pointed at an island outlined with red. It was one of the bigger shapes, but not in the middle of everything. He frowned as he stared at the odd criss-crossing lines on top of the island.  
“Oh, you’re wondering about the name? While I can’t disagree that it is indeed a fair island, most people just refer to places by the farmsteads’ names. They’d probably call this eastern side of the island Ukko’s shore or something like that.”  
“Don’t worry about it - the map’s a little wonky anyway,” Rauni added.  
“It’s a good map,” Ukko grumbled, turning to whisper loudly in his direction, “She always says that.” There was a sort of amused defensiveness in Ukko’s voice the like of which he hadn’t heard before. It was difficult to hold back a smile when he realised that Ukko had probably drawn the map by hand himself.  
“I think it looks decent enough,” he hissed softly in return, holding back a grin when Rauni burst into laughter and Ukko shot him with a mock-frown, shaking his head. Under a heavy breath he muttered something about young people and their manners.  
“Well, anyway. Einar lives here,” Ukko said and pointed his finger at another dot on the map. “It’s the Cattle island, because it’s where most of the cows are kept during the summer. Have you seen a cow before, Sven?”  
“I... don't think so, no.” Cattle sounded like a familiar term, something living, dumb and ugly and something _many_ , but in a very vague sort of way. He did not know what a cow looked like. He also didn’t like the small moment of silence between his words and Ukko’s next.  
“About time you do, then,” Ukko said, and didn’t sound disappointed or annoyed by the odd little revelation.  
“You have to show him the goats and sheep first, you treestump,” Rauni said and shook her head, “If he’s never seen a cow, you can’t just put him in the middle of a whole herd.”  
“He is going there to help build the new house, not to work as a shepherd-boy,” Ukko replied. “Sorry, sven. Where were we?”  
“The Cattle island. And Einar, who lives there and whom I am going to be helping,” he said, “To build a house.”  
Ukko smiled and nodded and went on talking about the coming week and the house that was being built. He pointed at a smudgy stripe of unjoined squiggles and said Cattle island a good three times in the same sentence. Said ‘sven’, again, and pointed at another island to tell him about it. Something to do with ‘no fir trees’. He wasn’t really listening.  
“I can’t make this bit out,” he blurted out and brought his hand up to tap at the map with his thin fingers. Rauni frowned and Ukko lifted his thick eyebrows in surprise.  
“How so? Is everything alright?” Ukko asked, and “Do you have a headache?” Rauni tried. He shook his head.  
“I merely… thought that,” he started to say, but couldn’t finish the thought. “I don’t know what it says,” he said instead, pointing at the words, the place names they’d already been through. His stomach seemed to turn itself upside down inside him, and he had to pull his hand away before it started shaking. The room was very silent, and only a soft tweet of a bird was heard from outside.  
He knew books, certainly, even though he couldn’t remember ever reading one, per se. And he must have seen a map before because he knew that this was a map, and he knew that in the bottom right corner there was a wind rose with its eight compass points and _that’s what Ukko had said_. And it was a good map. He knew how to read it, he simply had no idea what to make of the letters that were used or which parts of the neatly drawn but horribly jumbled scribbles were meant to be which. They meant nothing to him.  
And he couldn’t read. Not one word.  
“...I think I must be illiterate,” he said after a while, softly, before clearing his throat. His voice absolutely did not break while forcing out the unfortunate statement. Ukko sat down with a silent thud and Rauni looked at him from under her brow in a concerned way.  
It was a surprise even though he couldn’t pinpoint a reason to his unbelief. He simply couldn’t read. These two people had a map on their wall and were eager to tell him everything about their home, and he couldn’t even recognise words when they were put on paper.  
To think about it, he didn’t even have a clue about the spelling of ‘cattle’. How many sounds was there? Were they all written down?

“We can fix that if you want to,” Rauni told him with a calm voice that stopped his thoughts like they had run into a wall, “but it might take a while.” He could only give back a short, tense sound from the back of his throat. Ukko opened his mouth and started to get up from the bench.

He didn’t want to talk about the map anymore, so he thought it best to stand up first.  
“You said something about about livestock? Sheep?” he asked, as politely as he could. Ukko looked like he might sigh, but smiled instead.  
“Of course. But let’s clean up the table, first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait - my summer job ended which meant that my vacation started, which then led to a lot of doing-nothing with my family.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts! I'll check possible typos later.


	6. Things to Remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some things you need to know about this place so you can be of any help. And, also, so you will not look like an idiot.

You must leave the big goat alone if he looks like he's starting to get unhappy. And never spill milk in the barn. Don’t put all eggs in same basket so you won’t break every single one if it gets knocked over. Yes, like that.  
Remember to tell the mare when you’re leaving her on the pasture. Remind her that you’ll come back later. When the mare’s ears flatten against her neck, she’s angry - oh, you knew that already. Good. Give her some oats and dry bread after working.

Yelling, whistling and swearing in sauna are absolutely not allowed. They only bring bad luck. Men go first, women second - no, don't be silly. It's not about who gets the softer bath, it's about _väki_ , might. Women have more of it, though with your flowing hair I'd say you have more than Ukko here.  
And the last heat must be saved for the caretaker, because he has the biggest might around here. No, but you aren't supposed to see him anyway. He is a spirit, a small old man, an elf. He keeps everything in check when we can’t.

Raspberries need to be checked for maggots before eating or storing. And sven, do not step on the best strawberry spot. Rauni will skin us both if we destroy them. If you pull flowers or herbs up by their roots they will not grow again, so mind your yanking there.  
Don’t let go of the axe when you have to chop firewood. Think about hitting the wooden block underneath instead of the actual piece. I'll teach you to use knife to carve wood later, when I can be sure that you can handle this.  
Right now that day seems to arrive when the stars start dancing and feathers sink to a vat. No, I was just fooling around. You're doing well.

* * *

It was never easy to search for things that were invisible. To search for things that _were no more_ was even harder still. All of this Heimdall knew.  
After all, he had known Loki for a long time already.

The thing was, where the slippery salmon had previously managed to dodge his gaze by hiding in between the shadows and lighter spots of reality, he was now entirely swallowed by them. There was no Loki for Heimdall to look for, no glimmering reflections beneath the surface of endless stars and possibilities. He wasn’t swimming in between realms like a fish this time. More likely, Heimdall suspected, he was close to drowning already.  
Which is why the gatekeeper frowned when he heard someone approaching.

“Where is he,” Odin demanded in a way that was more of a statement and not a question.  
“Who might you be referring to, Allfather?” Heimdall asked, calmly, while looking at the span of glittering stars ahead. Of the colours and distances in between.  
“You know who,” Odin answered calmly, but in a way that betrayed his true irritation. That, too, was a statement. Heimdall turned around to bow his head for the king, and wanted to say _’I do not, for I cannot read minds,’_ but he did, in fact, recognise poor timing for playing clever when such presented itself. Besides, he had never really been one for pointless jokes. That, too, was mostly thanks to Loki and his ceaseless fooling around.  
Heimdall almost smiled. It was true that his life was a lot more peaceful at present.  
“I have not been able to find him, your Highness, for I know not what to look for.”  
“I see,” Odin said, and Heimdall knew he didn’t. Not really. “Is there something clouding your sight?”  
“No. I simply cannot look for someone who no longer exists - or, at least, one that does not exist right now. You banished Loki without a direction, and yet he wasn’t the one to leave this observatory,” Heimdall said, “It is surprisingly difficult to locate a misplaced man without an identity from a place as wide as _all space_ , my lord.”  
For a moment it was silent. Odin stared at the starry span ahead, and Heimdall couldn’t even begin to guess where his thoughts were wandering. That was where he and Loki had always been alike.  
“Let me know when he makes himself known,” Odin ordered. Heimdall gave a small nod.  
“If he does, I will deliver the news myself. If I cannot, I will have them delivered to your Highness as soon as I can,” he said, and turned his gaze to where the realms overlapped each other and tied together with the delicate threads of reality. There was no reason to look too far.

* * *

The weather was still hot and humid, and the skies were heavy and hung low. Sun was shining every now and then, though, and Ukko suspected that the days would get breezier soon.

“Is this the sea?” Ukko heard the young man ask when they were carrying buckets of water from the well to provide it for the goats and sheep on the meadows. He was looking out over the hill, where blue water was visible through trees.  
“It is,” Ukko answered, and thought he saw the hint of a satisfied little smirk on the narrow face. “Do you recognise the salty wind, maybe? I would know the sea if I were asleep, having born and lived here for all my years. And I _did_ find you in the middle of it, as well,” he tried to prompt the young man. Sadly, the smug expression vanished and for a moment the lad looked just as lost confused as when Ukko had first found him.  
“Is everything alright, sven?”  
“...yes, I merely thought I knew - well, I... it was just a feeling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be a little bit ~~a lot~~ shorter than the previous one, but I needed to get this done quickly so we can get to meet some of their neighbours in the next one ;)
> 
> Also, _väki_ is magic. The more might you have the more _väkevä_ you are. Just so you know.


	7. Who are you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is unsure of themselves at some point of their life. Also, who the heck are you? You sound funny. You look funny, too.

It was warm and grey on the day he was to leave. Rauni gave him a bundle of something he was supposed to share when he ate with the other workers, cheese and fish, and he also got Ukko’s odd birch-woven slippers. The man called them by a name he couldn’t remember. Apparently it would not make him look representable to go barefoot, though for some reason he didn’t find the basket-like shoes any more so.

The south wind was soft and pleasant, but very insistent in the way it was pushing the cool waters higher up the shores. It blowed against his back as he sat and Ukko rowed and whistled a tune or some other. His beard was the same grey colour as the foamy heads of the waves that broke in the wind. Ukko didn’t look at him even though they were sitting face to face. The man seemed to know where they went and spent his time looking at the birds that flew above them.

He, on the other hand, would have rather stayed behind on the farm, looking after the two small goat kids and a young lamb or chopping wood (now that he was starting to get a hang of it after two days of failures). Or perhaps he could have helped Rauni with the garden and the henhouse. Cooked some more. Tried to read something again.  
He would _rather not_ have sat in the boat, watching green shores pass by and waiting for the inevitable with not a small amount of anxiousness. It still hadn’t rained, and the sky was a deep smoky blue - only from small tears in the thick blanket of clouds could a brighter colour be seen, and from them the bright sunlight sculpted bright pillars of light towards the sea.

“I don’t think this is a very good idea,” he said and grimaced. Ukko raised his brows, but said nothing.  
“I have no experience, would never know what to do, and will likely only be a hindrance. I do not know a single thing about building a house”, he tried to reason, and it was true, mostly. He was happy with the work he got to do at Ukko and Rauni’s homestead. He was _having success_ in doing the work he was given. He didn’t want to prove all that wrong by failing completely in some other job. However, Ukko didn’t seem to think his arguments good enough.  
“Don’t talk a hole in your head, sven, you’ll be a great help for everyone. Moreover, meeting other people will do good for you. You got used to our tasks quickly so holding a plank up for someone will hardly be a problem,” the old man said, laughing. He tried to feel proud for the praise and show it, _he did_ , but didn’t realise how tense he had become until Ukko really smiled at him.  
“All will be fine, and I trust that you’ll manage well. Besides, if you do what the rest do, you might get some payment for what you’ve done. We may someday be able to buy you real boots.”  
He smiled back weakly at that and gave a short sigh.  
“You really think I’ll do well, do you?”  
“Yes. You seem to pick up new things quickly. No one will care about how you do something as long as the work gets done in the end.”

* * *

Walking along a well-trampled path in the woods was at the same time very satisfying and very confusing. It was different from the small cliffs and open field of Ukko and Rauni’s island, and there was a thousand things moving in every direction. A tall, thin tree had a bunch of rounded leaves that fluttered, even in the nearly-still wind, in a way that made it sound like a storm was rising or a hundred voices would’ve whispered from atop its branches. There were trees with tall, white trunks and some that were short and covered in small needles. As soon as he stepped under the rather sparse canopy of green treetops, a deafening rush of chirps and tweets rushed against him and surrounded him completely. One sound whistled a small rhythm and another one sounded like the gravel under his shoes.  
“Just walk up the hill, there’s a clearing and some bigger buildings,” Ukko had said when he left him on the shore. “I’ll come and pay you all a visit later this week.” And with that the man had left. He had no choice but to keep walking along the steep path, hoping that he would not get lost.  
He didn’t know how to carry himself. He didn’t know how to speak to others.

* * *

News of Ukko’s stranger spread like wildfire. He told Einar, who was a very calm and thoughtful man. Einar’s wife, while a joyful and caring woman, was quite the opposite in nature. She managed to milk the rumour from him, and in turn told her best friend, who was just as excited and a little bit worried, and told her sister and husband. The husband grumbled about the whole unnecessary fuss to his son, who laughed at the story with his friends. Some of them told their sisters about it, and the girls managed to spread the news to the rest along the village road. One of the friends of the son of the friend of Einar’s wife was then Einar’s son, who in turn was able to confirm or deny what was originally said.  
It was needless to say, that when a new face was to be seen, _everyone_ wanted to be there to see him.

Young, blond-headed Eero and a bit older, darker Arvi sat outside by the unpainted south wall of the new house with their knives and breaktime carving jobs - Eero’s was a new toy horse for his sister’s daughter, Arvi was working with the handle of a serving spoon for his aunt. The ground was covered in little shavings of wood, and every now and then the late morning sun would shine on them from behind the ever-moving mass of clouds. They could hear the sound of cowbells long before the gate on the far end of the yard was opened and closed with a squeak.  
“Greetings,” someone called out, walking closer with some hesitation. Arvi quickly stood up when he saw the pale man approaching and poked Eero with his toe to get him to focus as well. There was no knowing what strange people were up to, after all.  
“Hello,” he said loudly in return, not moving closer but relaxing his shoulders a little.  
“I was told to come here so I could help with the new house. Einar... has asked for more hands.”  
“You’ve come to the very place. Who are you?” Arvi asked and pointed in the newcomer’s direction with the butt of his knife. He had a hunch already, and the thought was a little amusing, but it was better to be safe than sorry. The ridiculously tall person stopped in his tracks for a moment, and Arvi almost took a step back to tell Eero whatever would eventually need to be told, before the eventual answer.  
“Sven, from Fairholm. I have come to work with you on behalf of Ukko,” the man said, after his short pause, with a ghost of a smile. That was about what Arvi had been waiting for and, while Eero got up, Arvi sheathed his knife and walked up to the new fellow with his hands extended for a firm shake.  
“Are we being formal, now,” he snorted but gave his new acquaintance a friendly nod anyway.  
“Arvi, from Burnfield on the other side of this island,” he said and tried to shake Sven’s hand. Sven went to grab his arm instead. 

Arvi frowned at him, and Sven seemed just as confused, which led to a small silence. Tanned hands fumbled with pale arms for a breath before a change of situation and a regular handshake instead.  
“Apologies, I did not mean to do that,” the tall, thin man said. Arvi shook his head.  
“No harm done,” he assured and motioned Eero to step closer. “This is Einar’s youngest son, Eero. Finally out of herding duty and allowed to help in grown-up things,” he said and elbowed the boy between his ribs.  
“Thanks”, Eero said, but shook Sven’s hand all the same.

“It’s just the three of us today, and Einar and my father, but a few fellows from the western isles should be joining us in a day or two. Let’s get in, I’ll show you what we’re doing. Eero can help,” Arvi said. (‘thanks,’ said Eero, again.)  
“It sounds good, thank you. I have to warn you, however, for I do not have any previous experience in house-building,” Sven said very swiftly for someone who used so difficult words.  
“I would’ve just said ‘I can’t build a house, sorry’, but that works just as well. Hopefully you don’t expect anything as fancy as your words are,” he said. Sven let out a sound that sounded a bit like a laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quicker update! And new characters! What's going on?  
> This chapter almost wrote itself from several shorter scenes I had in mind. Probably needless to say at this point, but this is a pretty slow-build fic :'D I have maybe covered like... a week and a half, tops? in what, seven chapters.
> 
> Let me know if you spot any mistakes. And thank you for all the lovely comments ❤


	8. A Day's Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now you've met your peers, Sven.  
> What about someone you once knew?

How were you supposed to introduce yourself if you had no name?  
It was a tricky and worrying question. All he knew for certain was a bright light peeking around the edges of his earliest memories, of his first night. He could remember the heavy rainfall of the night and the makeshift bed in the hall which he had thought hard at the time.  
A feeling of panic rose in his throat like waves against a boat’s side when he took hold of the wonky wooden gate. He pushed it gently to find out that not only did the gate open by pulling, it was also a very loud thing that let out a miserable squeal when he fumbled with it. _A gate_ had for a while sounded like a strong, impenetrable thing of power. He didn’t know why he had thought so.

There was a tall wooden pole by a well and a building somewhat bigger than Ukko’s house. Two people were sitting on the ground next to it and he called out a greeting.  
What was he to say? Why hadn’t Ukko told him to make something up _before_ getting there? Why hadn’t he thought of anything by himself? There were too many questions and too few answers, and he felt like his hands were starting to shake.  
“Hello,” the brown-haired man answered and so his time ran out.  
“I was told to come here so I could help with the new house,” he said, trying to be sure of the name Ukko had repeatedly told him, “Einar... has asked for more hands.”  
“You’ve come to the very place. Who are you?” he was asked.  
Who was he, when he had no memories? Where did he come from if he couldn’t even read a map? What was his name when he had none to give?

Then a quick, clear thought surfaced from in between his muddy, confused musings. For a moment he stood in silence, deep in thought.  
Could he say so? He almost looked back to where he had walked the path through the woods.  
“Sven,” he called out, almost smiling to himself, “from Fairholm.”  
It was true. It had to be so from now on. After all, a name was supposed to be something someone else gave you, wasn’t it?

* * *

The thuds and taps of metal against metal against wood were ringing in the open space. Arvi had a hammer in his hand and a nail in the other, more of its friends jingling in his pockets, while Sven and Eero held the long planks of wood up towards the ceiling and tried to keep them still and straight. All three stood balancing on the same long bench in the middle of the open room. The roof was supported by long logs but there was no inner ceiling yet, nor anything to prevent heat from escaping in the winter. It wasn’t high, per se, but the working position was uncomfortable at best.  
That’s why Einar and the rest of the island had decided to hire someone who hadn’t yet been pressed down by age or illness.

“Alright, let's put the straw in there before hauling the next pile over,” Arvi huffed, jumping down from the long bench. The piece of furniture let out a miserable groan, clearly unfit for bearing the weight of three young men hopping up and down on it.  
Sven, _he_ , groaned as well and slowly lowered his arms - by the second row of wood he had noticed that holding something heavy up against the ceiling was _not_ a comfortable position. When they had done four and a half, he had felt like his arms would fall off any minute, and they had done six. Arvi’s hammer fell on the floor with a dull sound that had a cold shiver running up his spine, but he followed suit and Eero let out a relieved sound.  
“It feels like we’ve made no progress at all,” the boy sighed, looking at the barely started ceiling.  
“Stop it,” Arvi said, “You should be glad that Sven arrived when he did because otherwise it would be just the two of us and we would really get nothing done,” Arvi said and rolled his shoulders to recover from the straining upright position as they walked outside to fetch three generous armfuls of barley straw from the bales they were more or less tied and rolled into. When Sven asked, Arvi said that the straw would make a good filling between the outer roof and the layer they were making and keep the house insulated, but it was another question entirely to get the straw in. And they were still at the lower part of the roof - it would be highest in the middle.  
There was, of course, some more climbing and uncomfortable positions to be expected. In the end they decided that Eero would push the straw in while they, being older and taller and supposedly somewhat stronger, would help him balance on their shoulders.  
“Stop kicking my ear!” Arvi snapped.  
“I would, but you’re too short,” Eero laughed at him from where he was shoulder-deep in between the ceiling and the roof.  
“It is true that there is a slight… height difference,” Sven said while trying to hold back a laugh at Arvi’s dark glare.  
“Perhaps you should get up on the bench?”

* * *

How were you supposed to mourn someone for the second time?

When the night fell Thor sat in silence, like he often did nowadays, without really knowing what to feel. It wasn’t really sorrow nor anger and guilt that had him staying up at night. It was something else.  
And why should he be upset? Everything was calm again and perhaps he had a new chance to build the foundations for his life, even if he only had a part of the old masonry left to use. His odd dreams were gone and the battle against Ultron and for Sokovia, though horrible in its short-term enormity, was over and he finally had a chance to breath freely. He hadn’t seen his friends for a good while, neither Midgardian or Asgardian, but perhaps some time alone had been just what he needed.  
He was tired and often he felt like was at least twice as old as he had been during his last decade. It made no sense, but he was more exhausted than ever before in his long life.  
Jane was so kind and sweet towards him and she talked with him a lot. It helped to clear his mind. Told him to sleep over it and think about it again in the morning, when things made more sense - whatever _it_ was, she was usually right. She was a remarkably wise woman, especially for one who had only lived for so short a time until that moment. 

“You should see your friends more,” she told him over breakfast. Thor laughed gently.  
“I did see Bruce the other day. We had fun. He can spark up a good conversation,” he replied. Jane smiled but shook her head, while morning light shining from the windows made her squint.  
“I mean your old friends. You know, Sif and Fandral and everyone? I don’t think you can cure your homesickness with completely extracting yourself from there,” she said.  
“I am not extracting myself from Asgard,” he frowned.  
“Says the God of Thunder in sweatpants and a worn t-shirt,” she said with a smile, biting into her toast. After a moment of unsuccessful frowning Thor couldn’t help laughing again.  
“Alright, perhaps I have put some distance between Asgard and myself.”  
“I know it’s hard for you, I do,” Jane said and looked at him more seriously. “But I have had a huge load of breakdowns and still gone on research trips. Usually they help me solve my thoughts. Why wouldn’t you be allowed to visit your home every now and then? You’ve known those people for a longer time than anybody out here has even been around,” she continued, “I think a little visit would do you good.”  
“Thank you,” he said and really meant it.  
“Besides, I’d love it if you brought back some of that amazing cheese with you. We could have a fancy evening snack when you do.”

* * *

The work was exhausting and hard for your back, so a opportunity for a lunch break was welcome. They had ale and some more of the dark bread that was seemingly common in the islands (“Rye and barley,” Arvi said, “I'm surprised if you've ever seen white bread in your life.”) together with what Sven had brought with him.  
An old tanned man with a thick white beard and sharp blue eyes dropped in once to check on the three of them. He said that he would start the sauna, and, with a long thoughtful “mm…”, he left just as abruptly as he had arrived. Even after the man left Sven could feel his gaze on him, and for a moment he wondered if it was possible for someone to watch another without really seeing them.  
Later he heard that the man was Einar, Eero’s father.

The evening came slowly, and the time of half-light before the sunset itself was long - the bright golden sun stayed still above the horizon, lingering and waiting for the night to fall and for the moon to take its place. The last slivers of smoke crawled slowly out of the sauna and left a thick smell in their wake.  
"My arms don’t twist in any way that would allow me to toss more breath on the stove anymore, I need you two in there,” Arvi said when Sven doubted that they would all fit in together - though in all truth, it was more of a way to check that they were actually going to do the washing together. Luckily it was a bigger sauna than Ukko and Rauni’s. Sven couldn’t decide whether to feel reassured or embarrassed by Arvi’s weary laugh that was aimed at him. He didn’t really know how he should act around the other two. The only thing he could do was to try and pick up how Eero and Arvi acted around each other and repeat after them.  
Arvi seemed to have tired himself out and said little as he undressed himself, but Eero skillfully filled the silence.  
“And I mean, if you didn’t look like you do, I’d probably just think you’re one of my brothers back from the sea again,” the younger man snorted, looking at Sven from head to toe. For a blink of an eye _brother_ had an odd, twisting feeling clenching his stomach. The momentary warmth the half-thought brought with it was quickly replaced with an echo of something so cold and hollow that he didn’t even _want_ to know what it was about.  
What had he been thinking about?  
Brothers?  
Eero’s brothers.  
Sven blinked and looked at Eero, slowly raising a brow - if he didn’t look like he did. Though they were both rather pale, Eero less so, there was no way anyone would have regarded them as brothers, was there? For what Sven was aware of his own appearance, Eero had strikingly different features from him - at least wider hands and shoulders. Nevermind the boy’s straight dirty-blonde hair instead of Sven’s black sort.  
“Though you’d be an awfully skinny and dark one,” Eero laughed, apparently in similar thoughts. Sven frowned but decided to leave the comment without an answer, and luckily the previous piece of information was enough of a curiosity on its own.  
“So… you must have many brothers then?” Sven asked. He almost wanted to ask what it was like to have a brother. (“I’m going in already,” Arvi said and disappeared into the hot room.)  
“Six, we are seven brothers altogether,” Eero said, shrugging like it wasn’t that big of a number, “And Erika, she’s my sister. But I’ve… I’ve only met two of them lately,” the boy said and paused for a moment.  
“Ensio is the blacksmith’s apprentice and Elmer works at the old swordsman’s farm. The other four went to search for work in the _rik_ and I haven’t seen them since. Only one of them knows how to write a proper letter, so,” he sais and shrugged again, pulling off his shirt and stepping into the sauna.  
“Luckily they took all the stupid with them! Come on in already, you smell just as disgusting as Arvi does!”

Eero was still young. Just a boy really, a fun-loving youth with an eye for sarcasm.  
A boy with rough hands and strong arms, and an already ragged voice (“from some old illness”) and when he wasn’t laughing he had just as mute an expression as Arvi and the elderly did. He was young, but knew how to act like a grown man. Or at least was aiming towards it.  
Sven, on the other hand, didn’t even know how old _he_ was. A few days with only Ukko and Rauni seemed to have made him feel like he had to prove himself, prove that he was an adult, despite clearly being much younger than them. Now, looking at Eero, Sven couldn’t help but feel surprisingly old and twice as stupid as he had been feeling just the previous day.  
“Hey, Sven, are you coming? We have to close the door soon, it’s getting cold in here!”  
“Of course!”  
“Climb up here, we can squeeze Eero in the corner, he won’t mind,” Arvi said.  
“I _will_ mind - I’d rather not have you sitting on me!”  
“Don’t yell in the sauna! Up he goes, Sven, come on.”  
He was pulled on the topmost bench by several pairs of hands. Eero threw almost an entire bucket-full of water on the hissing stones of the stove and the room was filled with steam.  
“You should eat more, really, you’re skinny as a reed,” Arvi said and jabbed Sven between the ribs with his knuckles.  
“You really are not that large a man yourself,” he snapped halfheartedly, glad of his height. He suspected that Arvi was more on the short side than he was on the tall, but he couldn’t be any more certain than he could on another matter. Besides, a much as he wanted to argue, they were all naked so he had little to use as grounds for defending himself. Arvi had arms as thick as his own legs were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was especially fun to write **because Thor!** Thor is my darling and my child and I really enjoy writing him, so you can expect him in the future as well.  
>  I also hope that there wasn't too much in-depth description of house-building for your tastes.
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos and comments! I love to hear your thoughts so please, share them ❤


	9. Rikbirds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark dreams and duty-filled days are nasty when put together. What is this thing with knowing who is who and what is what?

At first he thought it smoke, so thick the greyness was all around him. When he noticed that his eyes didn’t sting and the smell was not one of fire and ash but of sea and wet grass, he realised that it was only thick fog. There was no sky and no stars, nor any sounds to be heard, but he could smell the night and the rain.  
He was barefoot, standing with his feet on the edge. Edge of what, he wasn’t sure, but he knew that the fall would be long if he ever decided to take a step forward and find out what was lying behind the blinding fog.  
Someone was pulling him away from the edge. He thought that he heard a soft fluttering sound somewhere in the distance, though he couldn’t be certain of the direction. The soft pulling became a forceful yank.  
He turned around and stood on cold stone that felt purposefully smoothed out. Why would someone go through the trouble of grinding stone until it was flat, why in the nine…?

The nine? What nine? He looked around himself and still couldn’t see anything but his own nose. It was getting on his nerves, not to mind that the fluttering flaps echoed around him still.  
He was wearing the green tunic that had been hanging in the hall - his own shirt - and it was cold and dripping wet on him. The fog seemed to almost cling to the dark fabric.  
‘What is this all about,’ he said, or at least he thought he did, and frowned. He heard someone calling in the distance, or at least he thought he did, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

* * *

The fog disappeared and took the dream with it, leaving him to wait for the next one. The muffled flaps stayed for a while.

_Or perhaps he fell into the white mess after all. Could it have been snow?_

Everything hurt. That was the first feeling he got of his next dream, though in truth it was more of a numb tingling feeling.

_If snow was supposed to be cold, there must’ve been something wrong with him. He felt nothing._

* * *

**“You have died,”** and **“You will die again.”**  
Though the sound was but hollow cries and groans of two enormous birds, he could hear the meaning behind the echoing yelps. His heart raced like a horse in heat but he knew that his face was as white as a bedsheet. Wide wings flapped and feathers the shade of deep night passed his ear in a flurry.  
Ravens. He _knew_ these birds! Not like one knows a type of birds, for these two were more than animals. _He knew them_ , like one knows people they’ve met. They had been in his life before, he was sure of that, and their eyes were not the home of a mindless beast. They were intense, piercing him, with all the hate that two viciously intelligent spirits could ever hope to project. No, he didn’t want to hear them.  
His breathing was rapid and he tried to cover his head with his arms. The two ragged ravens were screaming at him like the world was going to end and flung themselves at him like two maddened shadows from another world. The spot under his knees was almost black but it took him a moment to realise why. _Blood_ coloured the dirt under his knees and, while he knew that it wasn’t his, he didn’t want to trust his vision. Everything was crimson red and bright blue and cold and the ravens mocked him loudly. He could almost hear them accusing him of the state of the barren, slaughtered landscape. Even if he tried to scream back at the croaking birds, he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t breathe. His arms were pricked and scratched into a purple mess by the ravens’ coal-black talons and beaks.  
 **“You were dead”** and **“You are dead again,”** the ravens croaked and cried, he knew it even though he wasn’t hearing words. He didn’t want their omens and accusations but he couldn’t push the creatures away, no matter how he tried.  
He fell face-first on the wet, sickly soil and it felt like something was pressing against his chest and back, tying him down. After a moment of constricted gasping he realised that he was sleeping on his own arm, his face was stained with cold sweat and tears and the reason he couldn’t move was Arvi’s heel digging into his back.

Sven blinked a few times. He was in the unfinished house. On the quickly made bedding of straw and a few blankets on the floor. When Eero had gone home, he and Arvi had quite literally hit the hay without any further smalltalk.  
He crawled from under the other man’s limbs and stumbled up as quickly as he could, gasping and trying to flex his left hand to get the numbness and tingling to fade away. There was no fluttering of wings nor the hoarse cries of the ravens to be heard. Even though the smell of rain was heavy even inside the house, it had apparently stopped raining since he couldn’t hear a thing. The silence was broken only by Arvi’s snoring. 

Sven didn’t want to throw up, but frankly the feeling was very close to nausea.  
He smoothed his shaky hands over his face and his wet eyes, and brushed back the long strands of hair that hung in the way of his vision. Everything would be alright. Nothing was attacking him. He was alone and safe. His back was a little sore but he was to work again in the morning and it would probably be good to stay up for a moment so he could get his breathing back in control.  
He took a deep breath and walked to the door to get something to do instead of just standing still and thinking about the suffocating feeling that followed his dreams. The door squeaked softly when he opened it to the twilight of the small hours of the morning. He was angry at himself, or perhaps a little ashamed of how unsteady his long breaths were. The heavy dream wasn’t disappearing like nightmares had previously done. It wasn’t a first, he had woken up abruptly on a few previous nights as well, but usually the feelings from a dream did pass rather quickly.  
He was still teary-eyed. He felt sick and stupid and _pathetic_. He could hardly even _breathe._ What was wrong with him?

He was about to step outside into the wet grass and the smell of growing summer, when something heavy touched his shoulder and grabbed it fast. He flinched so hard it was more of a violent spasm, and though he may have later admitted to a slight overreaction, at that moment he was very serious about self-defence when he punched Arvi in the stomach with his elbow and dragged him against the floor in a choke hold.  
“ _Helvete_ Sven!” Arvi cursed loudly and punched him in the face, before giving him any time to notice his error. After a few more angry exclamations, and some disoriented grappling and quarreling, the situation settled rather quickly.

“You should keep from sneaking up on people like that,” Sven said when they were both leaning on the opposite sides of the doorframe, trying to be careful with his slightly bruised cheek.  
“And you should get some sleep instead of waking up innocent people and attacking them after,” Arvi grunted. There was a short pause, which wasn’t really surprising. Judging by the odd tone of Arvi’s voice he was still half asleep.  
“I am sorry for getting… somewhat violent. You have more than harsh fists as well,” Sven said. “And you _did_ surprise me.”  
“The funniest thing is that you still sound like you’re going to cry. I really can’t figure you out,” Arvi mumbled and made Sven regret opening his mouth at all. He massaged his face with one hand while Arvi almost laughed: “Oh boy, Eero would lose all respect he had for you if he hadn’t gone home for the night.”  
“Thank you, I feel _so much_ better now.” The horizon was already a pale yellow colour though the sky above them was still dark and blue.  
"That’s what you get for hitting the air out of my lungs,” Arvi said and stretched his neck to the side. “It’s alright. You’re a nice enough fellow so I don’t think I’ll hold a grudge. Though you could start telling a bit more about yourself.”  
“I am afraid there will not be much to tell,” Sven said, “One day I just ...was here.”  
For a long moment Arvi was silent and just looked at him with a puzzled frown, like he was trying to figure out a hidden meaning behind his words. Sven just straightened his back slightly and held the other man’s gaze.  
“Alright. Well, I’m going to sleep for a while still before the sun is up. Suit yourself,” Arvi said, and with that he went back inside. Sven was left sitting on the threshold. He was still confused, and judging by the soft red hue of the horizon it looked like the sun was already rising. He didn’t think that he could have any more sleep, but at least he didn’t feel so tense anymore.

* * *

“Eat early in the morning and late in the evening, unless you’re planning a visit. It won’t do good for your reputation to eat like a starving man,” _frouva_ Maire - Einar’s wife and the mistress in charge of the house - said when she welcomed everyone for breakfast. It was a common saying, but she always spoke obvious things in a friendly manner that made them suitable in each situation. And it was the first time Sven heard it. Arvi and Sven nodded their thanks to her and promised to be out of their hair soon and on their way to make new progress with the ceiling. She thanked them in return and seemed to be immeasurably interested in Sven - but said nothing of the sort.  
To Eero she cooed something about strong young men needing some rye into their wrists and pushed another piece of bread into his hand even when he said he was full, thank you.  
"You eat like a horse," Arvi thought aloud after a good bit of silent concentration on his own breakfast. Sven paused his spoon and looked up from his oatmeal with a frown.  
"I do not."  
"Do too. Besides, you're skinny as a fiddle-string so I would call it an improvement," the other man snorted, "Did they not feed you in Fairholm? Or wherever you came from before that."  
Sven was just about to point his spoon at Arvi and snap something about fools who should mind their own business instead of constantly insulting others without reason - though he wasn’t sure why such a strong reaction tried to lift its head - but it was then that he realised that Arvi was actually testing him. Dark eyes under darker brows, Arvi was looking at him. Was trying to see if he could fish out something Sven supposedly didn’t want to tell. There was of course the fact that Sven himself was always beginning to wonder the questions he was asked as well, and was thus very much unable to give an answer. Still. Arvi was trying to see if he was stupid enough to tell something or if he was truly so soft in the head that he couldn’t say a thing.  
He opted for the latter choice. It felt like a safer role to play.  
“I wouldn’t know, now would I? But there is no reason to worry, Ukko and Rauni have been very hospitable,” he said as calmly as he could. Arvi shrugged and finished his own bowl of porridge.  
Even though it was just more oatmeal and bread (in far greater quantities than Ukko and Rauni served, but then again, there were at least six or seven people coming and going around the dining table) Sven was grateful. He didn’t know what it was that he was always expecting to see on the table, and why it was that at first he was constantly so surprised to see only soup and bread and porridge. _Only_ was unarguably the strangest part of his thoughts - there was plenty, after all.

* * *

When the last rains had fallen and the clouds had dried up and disappeared, it was turn for the sun to rise high upon the sky. The bundle of light seemed small and far away, but it surely didn’t lack any warmth.  
The day turned out to be hot, “the first summer _helle_ ,” everyone said. The meaning of the word dawned with the sun - the day was sweltering hot, and the only silver lining in the situation was that at least they were working indoors and not out in the fields.  
There were at least four or five new men, and also a sister to someone, who arrived as helping hands as well. Sven didn’t really bother remembering their names as he was more interested in concentrating on working without any extra fumbling. The new house was to be a common meeting hall for people during spring and autumn when cattle was to be sorted and rowed either to or from the island in the start and end of pasture season. In the autumn and winter it would be good for holding small festivities and meetings to escape from the cold and dark night that lurked outside. Because it was to be in common use, it was also to be built together. No help in the building, no right to use the hall either.  
Hard, repetitive work was bound to get tiresome after some time. A plank of wood on top of a pile, then in your hands, then up in the ceiling over your head while someone reached for a hammer. There was not much you could do to add to the scarce pleasantness of such labour - at least not if you didn’t count clumsily mumbling a song that you knew. Arvi turned out to be a real rhyme book and knew countless songs like the back of his hand.  
Lunch break would have most likely been about Sven and where he came from, again, if a girl from the big house hadn’t come running to interrupt them and to add to the budding conversation.  
“Law-staff was passed on to _frouva_ by the miller just a moment ago. The lawman is calling forth this summer’s first hundred’s meeting. It’s in a week,” she said, long blonde braid trying to escape from where it was tucked under her belt. “She told me to say that everyone who is still working here at that time can row the longboat. And also that… Sven needs to figure out something by then?” she added and looked around to spot an unfamiliar face. Other’s followed her gaze.  
“Why am I to be brought up in this… meeting?” Sven frowned.  
“No one knows who you are, fool. That’s why,” Arvi said.  
“They need to know who are the tools that are used to work the land someone else owns,” a relatively grumpy-looking blonde man said, “And if you’re not on the lawman’s papers, the _rik_ can’t tax your work and worth or draft you in for the army if they want to go to war again.”  
Sven was silent for a while and looked at the rest of the surprisingly attentive audience he had gathered.  
“Is that right?” he huffed, but to get Arvi to stop frowning he smirked. “I had better to make something up, then. I may need some help, though. It would be nice to know something about this rik you talk about, at least. What is it?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your lovely comments again! In the next chapter we can _finally_ , hopefully, get to know more about the bigger world in which Loki/Sven has ended up. Has there been hints or foreshadowing already...? Hmmm, maybe.
> 
> I am always trying to keep this text as error-free as possible, but if you see something weird, I'd appreciate if you point it out ;)
> 
> Using words that mean something in Nordic and Finnic languages is really hard when I can't find them in English, oops.  
> In Scandinavia, a hundred has historically meant an area of local governing, taxation and war draftings, which is separated into multiple _socken_ or _pitäjä_ areas, but since the English translation for those is undeniably christian-sounding parish I decided to leave the smaller-scale term out. A pitäjä meeting became a hundred meeting which is alright story-wise.  
>  Mistress and lady and madame also provided a real challenge, so I ended up using a fenno-swedish hybrid word frouva, which you can think of as a similar-looking term as German frau. Here it will mean the boss lady of the house and a wife to someone, but lady sounds too fancy to use about a regular farmer's wife.


	10. Lawman's hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who is this guy and why is he such a big deal around here? And who are you, and why are you such a big deal around here?  
> It'll be a long day.

A dog could easily be heard barking in the distance over the still blue waters as clearly as from the neighbouring farm. Distances often felt different on dry land than when travelling by boat, when the winds whispered softly and the current carried on, not caring for the rocky miles over high hills and through deep woods. Everything stopped and fell asleep, while everything moved and breathed, alive at the same time. The breathing boat and the oaken oars were a boatman’s trusted companions, and the sun and the sea that seemed to stretch out forever were always watching over them. Sometimes in a kind way, sometimes less so.

_The driver sweats, the way splits in twine, the shaft bow is broken as well. Still the stud he heaves no breath.  
\- Sitting in a row boat on the waves and rowing with two separate oars_

On a good hot summer’s day, when there was no rain, no clouds nor any fog, one could almost make out the faint outline of _something_ shimmering in the western horizon. Perhaps a range of blue mountains next to the stad, the big city, and its rich fields and great walls and towers that rose above the tallest trees you would ever see. That was the kingdom, the foreign rule that kept everything in control, and that was where there were noble lords and great castles for every finger of your hands and more.

Sometimes the voyage to rik’s lands would only take a day and some. At other times, though, it could easily take three. That was how the sea was. And any way you looked at it, there were only a few good days each summer when there was any use in even trying to reach the mainland. Early summer was best spent cultivating the sparse land on the isles and taking care of animals and children, so no one really had time for thinking about that faraway place. When the summer was coming to an end and the harvest time had started, if there was any extra to be sold and some more to pay for the customs, some people would leave with their goods and try to earn some actual money. Perhaps buy a mirror or a sheet of some more expensive fabric to take home.

_A filly whinnies in Rik and a colt coughs in the city, while we can see the flash of their bits.  
\- A thunderstorm brewing in the West_

When mushrooms popped up in the woods and leaves fell from trees, cold autumn weather took hold of the isles. With it came the fog - it rose up from the sea and formed an impenetrable wall, starting from the North, and there was no one who could leave then. Winter was for staying inside. For surviving, and hoping that the forces of nature and the spirit world would be gentle that year.  
Some say that the wall of fog was actually more than just a visible border, and that it became a pathway to the underworld. It seemed plausible, since no one stupid enough to leave during the fog ever came back. It happened every year, shortly after the water got too cold for swimming. And when it disappeared came the rain, followed by dark winter chills. 

_What makes a wider path, what builds a better bridge, under which the fish can swim, over which a horse can race, which rots with the rise of morn?  
\- Winter freezes the waters over and the ice melts in the springtime_

In the winter the weather cleared up again, and even though it came dark earlier the starlight would reflect from the thick blanket of snow and light your way. The sea froze over so well that a horse or three could be harnessed on front of a sleigh and driven on the thick ice in trot or even full gallop with no fear of drowning. Of course the places with the strongest currents were to be avoided, but it was the same with a boat so it was already clear for everyone. On extremely cold winters, which were rare, you could even use a horse over the whole trip to reach rik. Though if you did that, you had better to dress up well and harness your horse in bells and the prettiest carved collar you owned, lest you’d only be ridiculed in the brightly shining city. Even if you raced there only to beg for food.

All this Sven learned over the course of two working days. Arvi and Eero were helpful enough to even tell him that the lawman, Faravid from Kingsyard, was born to a father of the rik and a mother of the islands. He was raised and taught in Rikstad and was then appointed to a royal profession as the highest lord around. No one loved him for the words he brought but everyone respected him for the answers he delivered back.  
Arvi and Eero also taught him how to row the longboat with them. It wasn’t really all that big, but it was large enough to carry a dozen people. Those who didn’t own a share of the boat could get on board by providing the muscle needed. That meant them - the croftless people working for other houses and families.

* * *

Kingsyard was the largest farmstead around the islands, mainly because it was appointed to the lawman by the king. Not only were the royal fields large and worked by many people renting their on crofts from the lawman, the buildings were also grand and unlike others.  
The main house was larger than most, and painted a golden yellow. The colour was striking amidst the greyed wood of smaller houses and the rusty red of soil-painted common buildings and barns. With the large windows reflecting sunlight and the white tiled roof rising towards the sky high and smooth, the house looked over the largest island, rather conveniently called “Yard’s land”, like a shepherd over his herd.

“Come on then”, Arvi told Sven as they were standing in front of the house, and pulled him forward, together with Arvi’s two cousins and more people than he could remember having ever seen in one place at the same time. Hundreds, Arvi had said, and he believed it. There were small children running in between adults and running into their legs and a loud chatter going on in every direction, there were hats and coats and skirts and scarves and shoes and bare feet, and someone had actually brought a young cow bull with them for whatever reason. He was currently having some trouble with another man who had arrived with a cart pulled by a fat horse. The dappled white creature seemed to have fallen asleep but the red-and-white cow was still having none of it.  
“We will never get inside with all this… mass of people,” Sven hissed after a good while of standing still and being squeezed in between total strangers. It made him feel uncomfortable. “Could we not just push through?”  
“I’d like to see you try,” said Arvi’s cousin Helga, the grumpy-looking woman from their ceiling workshop, and pointed towards the door between two white pillars.  
“Those are real stonework. Have you ever seen such?” she asked. Sven still thought the way everyone spoke rather blunt, but then again there probably wasn’t a need to soften the blow of something like an architectural question.  
“Have I ever…?” he repeated to himself while looking at the doorway ahead of them, but the sentence died in his mouth. _A golden shadow and the swirling shapes of snakes. Echoes of secret sounds around him._ Something twisted inside him and whatever the thought in his head had been, it disappeared. Only a slight headache remained.  
“No, I don’t think I have, and it can’t be very common, can it. Are they purely decorative or there for a reason?” he asked and turned to look at Helga, even if it was rather difficult in the current clump of people. Arvi was already plowing through a group of old ladies in front of them and Helga’s brother was pushing the both of them forward from behind.  
“You never know with the lawman. Probably only there to keep his pride high enough,” she laughed and nodded the second sentence to her brother. He didn’t really laugh, just frowned a little less for a moment, but Sven found himself smirking all the same.  
“We wouldn’t want him to think too lowly of himself, then, would we?”  
“We wouldn’t, trust me,” she grinned before looking at him more intently again. “You should get a hat, otherwise your skin is going to peel away soon.”  
“Excuse me?” Sven asked, confused of the sudden change in topic, and lifted a hand to his temples. How was the talk suddenly about him? His skin was peeling off?  
“Your face, it’s going red from all the sunshine. You should try to find a hat somewhere, or maybe rub some plantain salve on your forehead.”  
“You’d better listen to her, it’s not fun when your face and shoulders start getting summery,” Arvi cut in before Sven had a chance to get defensive over his skin, “Not that dangerous either, but itchy and uncomfortable.”  
Sven nodded quietly after a short moment of turning the advice in his head. It seemed sound and honest.  
“Thank you. I will try to keep that in mind.”

* * *

The time they spent standing in the sun being shoved around by people felt like ages, but eventually the worst jam cleared and the queue started to flow. It was darker and cooler inside the house and the general direction led them through a pair of doors and into a large, open hall.  
Wide and deep, filled with rows of benches and a large open fireplace in the middle, it was a hall in every sense of the word. A place for hosting a feast. For holding council. For gathering and for claiming attention. Sven didn’t know why it was so, but the lawman’s hall fit the feeling much better than Ukko and Rauni’s dining hall or the cattle building they were building with Arvi and the others. It was proud, as Helga had pointed out, and there was a large table in the centre of the room.  
“Let’s go left, there’s a good place against the wall. The seats are left for those who own or lease land”, Arvi told, and it wasn’t long that they were all standing to the side of the hall and watching people pouring in from the doors. The loud exclamations and greetings from outside morphed into the shuffling and clattering sounds of people trying to move about in an open space and finding a seat.  
And then it was quiet for a while, or at least as quiet as can be when there are a couple hundred people in a hall together and more still coming in.

When the lawman entered, with calm steps of heeled boots that knocked clearly against the floorboards, there was no question about who he was. He held his back straight and chin up, smiling lightly to himself before taking his place in the front. Something in his carriage made Sven feel like he suddenly knew why people respected him. It was admittedly a rather stupid feeling, but the lawman seemed to know exactly who he was and what he was able to do. He looked like he did.  
Faravid of Kingsyard was calm when he assessed the still incoming trickle of people. He was taller and had longer features than those around him, and though his short, neatly clipped beard wasn't yet gray with age there was a certain solemn knowledge and old feeling about him. Even in his silence he was a distinguishable force in the midst of the chatter.  
Everything from the way he stood to the way he looked was different from those around him, save for a few better-off merchants in the front row. His coat was dark blue so deep it was closer to black and there were metallic accents embroidered to his cuffs and lapels. He wasn't wearing the same off-white flax or faded black wool as the rest, nor were his hands brown from the sun and the earth - his clothes were clearly expensive (silk and velvet and thick elven embroidery, and leather and fur, and… gold… and Sven didn’t know any more. Where did he start? Leather?) and his copper-brown hair, brushed neatly, almost reached the line of his shoulders.

"Good day to you. I call forth the first hundred's meeting of the summer, be seated and welcome," the lawman said, his calm, somewhat throaty voice ringing in the hall, “I hope your road here was undisturbed and that you have all arrived - and on time for once, unlike when we last met to hold council. It was a rather chaotic event.” The ending almost seemed to be something closer to a joke, and he managed to get a few chuckles from his audience.  
"And now we shall start. First with the pressing matters of the rik, which - unfortunately - are not going to be easy to tell or to receive." The pleased murmur died quickly and the lawman cleared his throat. He opened a thick letter and briefly showed it to the people in front of him - to let them see rik’s royal seal at the end of the long message, Arvi hissed that to Sven’s ear, and he was struck by an odd surge of gratitude for the dark-eyed man. He hadn’t even had to ask.  
Ukko and Rauni were the same. And Eero. And actually everyone he had met. He would have to remember to thank them.  
"To further preserve the kingdom’s safety on its every border,” the lawman read from the letter, “it is required of every linked ally and province that the yearly amount of taxation collected from all and every landowner and borgare, by village or neighbourhood, needs to be raised by an added sixth-part of last year's sum at harvest. Exceptions include - by the definition of their intermittent and episodical work - textile and fur traders, butchers, brewers, professional craftsmen such as listed below, the tar boiling business and fishermen; all of whom are required to pay taxes in every field of their expertise periodically, as before,” he finished, though he seemed to stop only for the fear of having to read out loud any longer and not for the fear of running out of text to read.  
“Which means, if put shortly, that taxes are rising. For everyone," the lawman said after a sigh and a short pause, and as much as he tried to keep his voice loud and clear, it was threatened by an array of displeased sounds. Sven couldn’t understand half of what he had said, but he did understand that rising taxes meant that the people had to pay more. No wonder everyone sounded so upset.  
“It is by the decree of the royal council. They have deemed it so that the kingdom is, again, in dire need of products to fund the armies and for the rebuilding of lost homes. Recent skirmishes in the North have disturbed the finances of the realm and every land needs to do their part to ensure our common safety,” the lawman raised his voice, and Sven couldn’t help but feel strong respect for the way he managed to command attention to himself.  
“Now is not the time for complaints. I will accept those later,” he told, “but I will answer questions. Those who have something to ask, stand up.”  
The sound of screeching wood and shuffling feet was like a slap to the face. And that was how the day went on.

The noon soon turned to afternoon and the sunshine from the windows was as present as anyone in the hall. Taxes caused a lot of people to be very angry, but they were not the only thing to discuss - someone had broken a fence somewhere and was to be made responsible for such a nasty crime, and more than twenty people said said that there was trouble in using an old bridge that had taken damage from the long wet spring and was now getting rotten and dangerous.  
A horse had gone missing and the storms were going to make collecting hay difficult, and someone wanted to sell back a bad cow they had been tricked into buying. A shoemaker from the front row wanted to inquire if there were any foreign merchants stopping by in the course of the next two weeks, because he really needed a new tool of some sort.

Truth to be told, Sven understood little of all the topics that were discussed. They seemed so strange and alien to him. However, he did see the lawman scribbling away note after another on the pages of a thick book on his table. He tried to think and remember and turn it around in his head, but he really didn’t know how to spell a single word. Or, what was more, to read or write at all.  
“Arvi,” he whispered slowly, hesitating slightly. The other man glanced in his direction and gave a soft grunt that he took as an encouragement to go on.  
“I was wondering if you knew how to read.”  
“I do,” Arvi whispered back and sounded pleased with himself, but his expression soon changed to one of badly veiled shock.  
“Are you sa... _you can’t?_ ” he hissed, trying to fight back both a laugh and stunned astonishment. Sven frowned at the reaction and fixed his posture.  
“Excuse me, do you find this funny?” he asked, lowering his voice and turning toward Arvi, but an ugly glare from an old lady sitting close by silenced the both of them. Arvi raised a brow and Sven sighed softly through his nose. “I was only wondering if you could… try to teach me some of it. Or at least show me how to write my name.”  
“Yes, of course. Maybe when there’s a break with the ceiling and painting of the house. And, if you need something read, just pull my sleeve - or Eero’s, he is a bright lad.”

The topics and votings were long, and seemed to go on forever, before the lawman suddenly raised a hand and told everyone that they would be having a short break in their hundred’s meeting. It seemed like the entire hall sighed in relief.

* * *

“Now that we have gone through an awful lot of things, and drank to our health, it is time for a very different kind of topic. It has come to my knowledge from many directions, so I believe that most of you already know about this”, the lawman announced loudly as a way to bring up a change in the course of the meeting. The grumbling about previous matters ceased completely, and was replaced with hushed whispers. Arvi sharpened up again and poked Sven in the shoulder, but there was no need to tell him where they were headed. He might have been illiterate but he was no idiot, not even when his stomach felt like it was full of ants.  
“The new drenge in Fairholm? Correct me if I have it wrong. If you’re here, I would ask you to step forward so I, and everyone else as well, can see you properly.”  
Helga and her brother shoved him forward with force and everyone seemed to turn around as quickly as he had gained his footing. He took a deep breath to ground and comfort himself, while a child started crying in the other end of the room.

So much for comfort.

“Good day to you. Come forth. I would like to ask you a few questions,” the lawman called out to him and gestured to the middle of the hall with his hand. Before Sven had a chance to react, Arvi reached out and hit the back of his head and he had to give a jerky half-bow before moving to take his place in front of the lawman.  
It felt strange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nooooo, I had to cut at the cliffhanger because this chapter was already growing enormous! But as soon as I have the rest written you can have it, so don't worry.
> 
> Now we have seen a bit more about the general order of things. What do you think? Ask questions and let me hear your thoughts, they make me smile and keep me writing! Thank you to all of you who have commented this far.
> 
> The riddles in the beginning are old Finnish ones I translated from a book I found at the library a week ago. Most of them were collected in the late 1800s-early 1900s, but they still reflect they way things were seen for centuries. I think they're cute, even if they're sometimes pretty hard to understand at first and even harder to translate to English sometimes, mainly due to the rather strict ancient-type verse and metaphors they are fitted into. But it was fun!


	11. He Should Have Known Already

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people always feel the need to explain themselves, others never even try.  
> Then there are those who just don't know what they are trying to tell.

“It is my genuine pleasure to meet a new face, though I am not certain of how you’ve managed to stay hidden from my eyes and ears this long,” Faravid said when he saw a tall dark-haired man take a few cautious steps towards his table. He stood out from the mass of people like a sore thumb, though it was mostly because everyone else was busy trying to look at him while he stood in the middle of the room with ill-fitting clothes and messily plaited hair.  
“...as am I. Sir,” the man said and even though he was tense he did a fairly good work at hiding it. Faravid nodded in return and smoothed out another paper for a new set of notes. How he hated these meetings and the endless list of problems...  
“Perhaps we could start with confirming your name. You wouldn’t mind telling me who I am speaking with, would you,” he commanded more than asked the man, whose shoulders weren’t quite as wide as you would expect from someone of his height. Then again, he also had a pair of long, lean legs and arms to match, so perhaps he was just built that way. There was something hungry in his features, though Faravid suspected that it was only the desire to be out of the situation as quickly as possible. The pale cheeks were narrow but not hollow, after all.  
“Of course not, sir. My name is Sven,” he answered, in a surprisingly cocky way for a common farmhand, and gave another short bow. Faravid nodded after a short assessment of the tall man and wrote the name down. It wasn’t nearly enough in a world where Sven really wasn’t that peculiar of a name, but it was a start.  
“Thank you. Can you tell me, Sven, where you hail from? Is there a place where you’ve come from which I could write down on this paper…?”  
“None which I know of.”  
“None… How can you not know where you were born?” Faravid asked and let some of his befuddlement seep into his voice as well. He looked up from his papers with a frown and there was a short silence, during which the pale man worked his jaw and tensed slightly, clearly trying to figure out the best answer. 

Of course, he should have known it earlier. Faravid let out a quiet breath and lifted his left hand up, balling it into a fist to stop the man from answering. Also to silence the rising murmur around the room.  
“A marketchild,” Faravid thought out loud. He wrote the word down before lifting his eyes from the paper and looking back down at Sven. People were whispering and Sven’s narrow face wore a frown, but it was nothing Faravid hadn’t seen before. Everyone was always curious and no one ever liked nosy people. Frankly speaking, judged by his changing posture and the held-back expression Sven seemed to be preparing for some sort of an angry outburst. It was not a welcome option for their discussion at a point this early.  
“How old are you, Sven? You seem to be very young to have been born during the Great Hunger,” he asked, but realised his error when the man shut off his expression again.  
“Excuse me?” was the flat question from the man who apparently wanted nothing to do with Faravid, and he sighed. He couldn’t understand why people chose to make everything as difficult as possible - it would have been a lot easier to talk to someone if they weren’t holding back every single piece of truth.  
“You must have been given away at a very young age. Do you think you might be in your ten hundreds?” Faravid tried, though he often had troubles guessing - the people of the islands looked ragged and worn already by the time they learned to walk, when the people of the capital - free of toil and physical stress - almost seemed like they were going to stay young forever. Sven didn’t answer him, only stared at him with an odd expression.  
“I will mark your age here at ten hundred… we can discuss this later in private. How long you have been working for Fairholm?”  
The sudden change of topic was clearly a surprise, but the farmhand seemed to relax a little when he answered: “...I have been there for roughly two weeks now. It would be my best guess. Though right now I have been building the new common hall at Cattle Island with a few others.”  
“Have you made a contract with your masters yet? To officially work for them?” Faravid asked and tried to search the gathered folk for the masters of the small further-away island’s only farm. He recognised the old man who seemed ready to jump up at any given incentive.  
“No, sir, I’m afraid not.”  
“But it is your intention?” he asked. There was a pause, during which Sven tried to look over his shoulder to where the people in question were sitting.  
“Naturally.”  
“Good. That is a relieving promise, to which I intend to hold you. And now,” Faravid said and raised his voice to address the whole room, “If anyone else has a question or complaint regarding this matter, they may stand up and voice it loudly so it can be answered.”

* * *

“I would ask you to remain here until  
this evening or tomorrow. We need to look at your situation a bit more in depth.”  
That was what he was told and he had agreed to it - quite happily, in fact, for he was eager to hear what made the lawman call him a marketchild of the Great Hunger. Who would have sold their children away? It all sounded rather upsetting. Waiting for those answers for a while was surely not going to be so bad.  
He should have known it already from the lawman’s politely uninterested tone and the many dissonant whispers and grumblings in the hall. It was never that easy.

Still, having him wait _until sunset_ at the back door of Kingsyard’s main house like an unwanted beggar was a _bit_ much. Even though there were many a people around the place over the course of the evening - naturally, no one was willing to leave the island so quickly if they had a matter to bring in front of the lawman and were even ready to wait until the next day - none but he were told to sit at the pile of firewood and wait there.  
There was not a lot of talk after the odd hearing, but there were a lot of questions left unasked. No one knew the answers and no one dared to ask, or so he suspected, and after the worst mess had cleared Arvi had been content with keeping him company and trying to draw the commonly used letters on the ground with a stick. All that Sven had really gained from the muddy shapes was that his name was spelled with four letters, even if he didn’t really know when Arvi’s supposed _ve_ became an _e_. But perhaps it made sense. Eero, Helga and her brother, Hilmar or something, had also sat with them for a while, but just as he got bored after a long while of doing nothing, so did the rest. They had friends and relatives to meet and Arvi had said that there was a game somewhere that he wanted to join.  
He wouldn’t have wanted to sit there any longer either so he couldn’t really hold a grudge, no matter how jealous the others’ freedom of choice was making him. At the very least they could tell him what the game was about later on.

A soft blue colour was creeping up in the eastern horizon but the sun still hung from the western edges of clouds. It was already late when the summer sun started to set, he had learned that already, and it would stay dim for a long time before the darkest moments of the night.  
He must have been waiting for ages. He had taken a walk or two around the back of the great house and looked at the household tools and the chopping block and axe which, for some reason, he had a trouble imagining the lawman using. He had also quite literally stumbled upon the chain of a very displeased, red-and-white pointy-eared guard dog while relieving himself and had spent a rather long time trying to calm him down and get him to stop growling. And then he had gone back to waiting by the wood pile. He wasn’t sure if he had fallen asleep or not even though it wasn’t even nearly dark enough to start lighting up lanterns and candles.

* * *

“By the heavens!” someone screamed in his ear. He jumped up and there was a loud crash from where the voice came.  
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” a young girl asked, trying to gather the large tin vat and its contents back into her arms while looking at Sven with a shocked expression. She seemed ready to hit him with the arm-long broom in her grip.  
“I was asked to wait here by the lawman. Do you work for his household?” he ground out and the girl looked at him like he had grown a second head.  
“I do, and he certainly hasn’t… Well, I could ask him,” she muttered, but didn’t seem assured. He should have known that he had been forgotten. First he was to be humiliated in front of everyone on the damn islands if they only could fit themselves into the hall, and now he was to be ridiculed again for no reason whatsoever, and in front of a mere cursed maidservant.  
(Though she must’ve been working for money. Her dress was made of a nice fabric, and all the while he was working for food and a roof on top of his head.)  
“It would be appreciated,” he said curtly. The girl squared her shoulders and stormed back inside, and there was more clattering when the door closed. For a while Sven was left waiting again, standing still and staring at the door.  
When the handle and hinges creaked again, the girl was smiling a forced smile. She was staring down at him from the doorstep like a piece of dirt but ushered him inside with her waving hands nonetheless.  
“Take the third door on your left-hand side,” she said before disappearing around the corner.

“Sven, come in. I apologise for the long wait, you must be exhausted from the long day,” the lawman with his neatly trimmed beard and dark velvet coat said when he pushed the door open and entered the room. The man was standing in front of another large writing desk, nearly identical to the one in the big hall, and seemed like he had just got up and stopped working with the papers scattered over the tabletop. The room itself was a lot smaller than the hall, but long and divided in two. The far end was dominated by two large bookcases ( _running his fingers against the backs of books in between endless hallways of knowledge_ and the thought was gone) and a group of seats covered with colourful rugs while on the other side of a small fireplace, the flames recently kindled, was situated some more official-looking furniture. The situation felt unreal. He didn’t know how to stand in the lavishly furnished space.  
“As are you, I suppose. Sir,” Sven answered as politely as he could, but the following though of ‘ _for someone who has been sitting here in that comfortable chair_ ’ was left unsaid. The lawman was hardly concerned for his well-being while first having him stand outside for the whole evening.  
“Indeed I am. Would you like something to drink? The dinner time has already passed, but if you would like anything, say so. I will call Disa here to bring us something.” And it just kept getting better. It was insulting to be reminded of just how long he had been waiting, but he tried to look as polite as he could. He didn’t know what the lawman had in his house, and asking for simply water or kvass felt a little stupid.  
“Whatever it is that you are having served will do,” he said and got a strange expression in return, almost an amused one. The lawman was different from the rest, and for some reason Sven felt like he couldn’t make out what the man was thinking at all. He didn’t exactly like the feeling.  
“Why am I here?” he asked, and for the first time he did not really care about how bluntly he said it and what was to follow, as long as he got the answers he wanted. However, somewhere in the back of his head there was an odd little feeling that told him it wasn’t really the first time. He didn’t know whether he should believe it or not.  
“I have had to think about your situation for a while, among many other matters, and-”  
“Yes, I gathered that from the lovely evening I’ve had with your dog,” Sven snapped without even realising what he was saying. The feeling flamed up without notice, and he was _angry_.  
“There’s no need to spit snakes at me, son,” the lawman said and frowned at him, seeming honestly disappointed in Sven. It made his ears warm in an uncomfortable way but he straightened his posture.  
“I am not your son,” he hissed.  
“As you wish, _sven_ ,” the lawman slowly said, with a tilt of his head, and oh he was a clever one - or perhaps Sven himself was a very simple one. Whichever was the truth, he couldn’t answer, could not come up with anything clever enough, so he only huffed out a small, sharp, laugh-like breath and lowered his eyes to look at the table behind the lawman.  
Faravid the lawman, who was now clearly more _Faravid_ than the lawman - though no less in control or powerful than in the hall - stepped to the door to look into the hallway and called the serving girl’s name loudly. It was a large house so no answer came immediately and for a moment Sven had a very odd feeling of having been in the situation before. He looked at the older man warily, but there was nothing to be seen apart from a soft huff and a shake of his head. Did the man live alone with his staff or were there others as well?  
“Disa or someone else will be here shortly. Do sit down, Sven,” the lawman told him and gestured towards the sitting area. “I will ask you a few more questions and show you some papers you need to see. You will have something to drink to compensate for your inconvenient wait. Other than that, we will not be interrupted.” Sven couldn’t really do anything but nod slowly and follow the orders - for they were orders, no matter how polite and friendly. The wooden bench under the woven rug creaked softly when he sat down and suddenly his lap was full of shuffling papers. 

“Take a look at the first one,” the lawman told him, without having sat down himself. The papers made an incredible amount of sound when he tried to get a better hold of them, mocking him for being unable to grasp them. _Or their meaning._ He looked and couldn’t make out a single thing from the incredibly tall and sharply curved bunch of lines drawn tightly next to each other. “It is all that I have written down of you this far,” the older man said and nodded in his direction.  
“Why?” he couldn’t help but ask, even though mostly he wanted to know what and how and if he could learn it too. The lawman looked at him silently for a moment and took a few paces towards the fireplace.  
“Because everyone has to officially exist. The crown wants to know how many people are living under its rule. It is a very complicated pattern, but I assure you that having your details written down is more important than you realise,” he said. Sven nodded slowly again, looking at the paper in his hands. He looked at the text - the incoherent lines in a neatly drawn hand - trying to recognise any of Arvi’s letters in it, trying to _make sense_ of it, to see something he could understand.  
“...You cannot read, can you,” the lawman said, and it was not a question. Sven lowered the paper immediately back to his lap and straightened his posture.  
“Not very w - I haven’t yet had the time to improve my… I am learning,” he said and the expression on the lawman’s face was nothing short of doubt. Sven could feel the angry heat rising back to his cheeks. “Going to start learning. Soon,” he added and cleared his throat. The lawman nodded with small wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, and Sven felt like he was holding back the laugh only to keep it hidden from him.  
“It is a good ambition and I apologise for presuming things I shouldn’t have. At least now I know not to start asking for your signature either. Ah, Disa, thank you for coming,” he said. The girl from earlier was at the door, so Sven stood up, and she bent her knees to a short curtsey for the lawman. He smiled at her.  
“Would you bring us something to drink? And perhaps some of the bread from today.”  
“Of course, my _herre_. What would you have?”  
“Something stronger than water, it has been a long day.”  
“Quite, sir,” she said and with that she was off again. The lawman stepped back towards Sven and held his hand open. After a short moment of confusion he gave the paper to him.  
“I will read this to you,” the lawman said and cleared his throat. Sven sat back down with a sigh of his own.  
“Name, Sven, of Fairholm,” the Lawman read out loud, before adding “I put it here to say something to distinguish you from every other Sven who has ever lived here… Which ‘is his current place of occupation. Aged ten-hundred on this day, 15th of fallow-moon’ or summer-moon if we’re using the mainland terms, but I think you’re more familiar with these,” he said. Sven nodded despite having previously had no idea that there even were multiple names for months. He had previously had no idea of his age either.  
“‘A young man of the hundred. Rank, bondman’, which means that you’re not a tenant and therefore not an independent farmer, ‘part of the peasantry’, which you will hopefully not find wrong… Now, I need to have some information of your health here. Have you suffered any a childhood illness? You don’t have club feet or a bad back, I suppose, what about your hands? Sore wrists?”  
“What is all this for?” Sven asked, trying to stop the sudden flow of questions. “My wrists are well and I am perfectly healthy. I think that I would have noticed if something was wrong or if I was in… discomfort from working.”  
“Good. These things need to be noted when people are changing their workplace situations or when the Royal armies are drafting soldiers. You do see why they would want to know about any permanent disabilities, don’t you?” the lawman asked him. Smart of him to tell the details only after the question itself to keep him from giving an untruthful answer.  
“Yes, I do. Sir,” he answered. “But I suppose that is not where the paper ends,” he asked without quite asking. The lawman gave a huff of laughter and scratched his copper-brown beard absentmindedly while keeping his eyes in the paper. The door creaked open again and Disa stepped inside with a tray, lowering it to a small table beside one of the covered benches.  
“It certainly isn’t. Thank you Disa, you can leave for today,” the man answered and dismissed the girl, moving to take two decorative cups from the tray and handing one to Sven. He took it carefully and lifted it closer to his nose - the cup felt heavy and delicate and wrong in his hand, but the scent from the drink was almost familiar. A flash of disgust was followed with a wave of something much more comfortable, but he couldn’t place it.  
“Spiced wine, in case you were wondering. To your legal matters,” the lawman said, lifting his own cup half-heartedly, and he nodded his thanks. Was he supposed to bow again? Apparently not, since the man sat down on the opposite bench and picked up his papers again. Sven sat back down as well, brought the cup to his lips -  
and nearly choked.  
“It is somewhat stronger than the usual home-ale, I would not suggest drinking it all at once,” Sven heard from somewhere behind the sound of him clearing his throat anď the water in his eyes.  
“My most sincere thanks for _letting me know_ ,” he grumbled in return and took a much smaller and slower sip, but luckily the lawman didn’t seem to hear him. He was staring at a bunch of papers with a deeper frown than earlier. Sven waited with a creeping sense of worry, swirling the wine around in his cup. Late evening sun was streaming in through a wide set of windows, and while it was not as bright as daylight it still painted the room in bright colours. There were intricate tapestries hanging on the walls that were woven with such skill that they almost seemed like they were alive. They were telling stories, but Sven wasn’t certain that he understood the tales correctly.

“Now we get to the bit that troubles me the most. You do not remember your birthplace, correct? I have marked it as unknown.”  
“No sir, I do not,” Sven answered, more than grateful for the way the question was formed. He couldn’t remember anything, but decided to keep it to himself to not appear as a complete halfwit.  
“Who named you? Can you remember anything of the families you’ve lived with?” the lawman asked and raised his brows at him, tapping at the paper. Family, even one, was not bringing up any pictures in Sven’s mind and it made him feel strange. Had he ever had a family?  
“No one in particular. I named myself,” he said and paused for a moment to think about what he was saying. Perhaps he didn’t need to tell the lawman the whole extent of his ‘troubling’ situation. The hesitation waned soon and he lifted his eyes up to meet the older man’s questioning gaze. “I can’t really remember when was the last time I had a place to stay before Ukko and Rauni helped me.”  
“You see, Sven, I am trying to look through some of the old notes of the latest poor auctions, and the truth is that there really haven’t been many in any recent years. Hardly any that would have resulted in a very young boy child being given away.”  
“Why should this be a cause of worry, sir?” he asked.  
“It shouldn’t, and it isn’t. But it makes me curious. If you were indeed made a marketchild and then given to the household asking the smallest compensation for your upkeep -” he looked at Sven as if he was trying to get a confirmation of the proceedings which Sven knew nothing about, so he gave a firm nod just to be safe “- then there should be some sort of a record of you. But if you didn’t have a name or have later on changed it, this will be more difficult. Of course papers can, and do, disappear, but if there is anything I have missed, I’d be glad to hear it.”

Fire crackled softly every now and then, trying to soothe the tense air that was rising from somewhere in the shadowed corners of the room. Sunlight washed the carpets and rugs and tapestries with gold to warm up the conversation. No matter how hard they tried, the last sentence stayed cool and clean. It was not formed like a question but Sven knew that the lawman was giving him room to answer. Was giving him a steady and calm, but forceful look, and expecting him to tell something. Even if he had wanted to tell something, he didn’t have a word to say under the lawman’s measuring pinewood-coloured eyes.  
He was judged, and it was not a secret. Not a surprise, either, but he couldn’t hold the man’s gaze any longer. The strong cup of wine was a transparent distraction but better than nothing. The lawman let out a short breath and went namely back to looking at his papers. Sven was thankful for it.  
Of course Sven wasn’t his real name. Whoever he had been before the last few weeks was not this person, sitting in the common hall of the lawman’s house. He did realise that.  
There was a flash of bright colours on the farthest edge of his memories, but he didn’t know what it was. He had a ‘fine shirt’ that was ‘not made for outdoor work’, but there were so many things he had done and seen and so many people he had met that he couldn’t remember what he had thought on the first night. His hands were still as pale as thin as they had been then, at Ukko and Rauni’s table.

A sudden turn in his stomach was making him feel sick breathless and he had to rise up and take a few steps around. The lawman turned to look at him over his shoulder and put the papers down from his hands next to the tray Disa had brought. Sven turned around to face him again and nodded carefully to apologise for such a sudden jump. The lawman seemed ready to rise up himself, and Sven didn’t want to turn the situation the wrong way.  
“If there was someone,” he rushed to start and raised a placating hand, “who had involuntarily got… lost, and didn’t know where he came - and if there was a disappeared record of him,” he said, and what had started as a try to temperate the lawman’s nerves had transformed into a frighteningly sincere question he couldn’t stop anymore. He wanted to, desperately, but his tongue was not obeying him.  
“Do you think he could be found again? Even if he didn’t actually know who he was or where he came from... Wouldn’t you know about those papers regardless?”  
And there he sat trying to fight back the creeping terror in the back of his mind. Holding the cup of wine tightly in his hands and staring at the lawman, whose expression had just turned as confused as Sven himself felt. The older man frowned and opened his mouth, closing it again before turning to his cup to have a swig of the wine.  
“...I do not have a straight answer for you. Frankly, I was not in the shoes of the lawman back when the last auctions were held. I was still a young boy, just in the beginning of my studies in the capital.”  
“But what if someone went missing?” Sven asked quickly, but the lawman raised his hand to stop him before he got any farther.  
“As I said earlier, I can look into the records I have here. However, I find that I must be honest with you,” he replied slowly, measuring his every word carefully. Sven nodded and scrambled up after the lawman when he rose from his seat.  
“After the auctioning became unlawful, for it has been an easy way to acquire helpers with an almost slave-like status,” he said, grabbing Sven’s shoulder firmly, “there have been virtually none who would willingly step up and say ‘I gave my child away’ or ‘this herder-boy of ours, he is not actually a paid worker’. Do you know why? You seem like a bright man,” the lawman asked.  
“...because they are afraid of the outcome,” he replied. 

“I find it highly unlikely that anyone would be looking for you, Sven, after all this time.” The grounding hand slapped his shoulder once before retreating completely. It left him feeling very alone and very confused.  
The sun was finally setting, and the golden rays took on a more blazing, red hue. His shadow had already grown long, but was now beginning to blend into the other dark shade of the room.  
Perhaps it was true. He should have known it already. Whoever he had been was clearly not very deeply missed.

“Can I fill your cup once more?”  
“...thank you, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this chapter is a monster, and I had originally planned to include Thor as well... Sorry for the long wait!  
> I love reading your comments, and they are always helpful - to hear your thoughts on different chapters helps me keep this interesting. ;>
> 
> Bet you didn't guess that the lawman is actually this really chill and empathic, mellow sort of guy. I didn't either, before actually getting to writing him. (Also a little scatter-minded due to him being a busy and occasionally stressed man, just imagine what his desk must look like.)  
> And poor Loki just feels like an unwanted piece of crap no matter who he thinks he is.


	12. Black dots against the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Curse you, Loki, and other old Asgardian proverbs._  
>  And this had better not become a habit, young man, or so help me!

Soft chirping of woodland birds filled the crisp morning air. The rising sun was tickling the roofs and treetops she saw with golden fingers and feather-light touches, before finally seeing fit to climb above the sea and light up the world. Green grass shimmered with dewdrops - some said that they were pearls which the moon or a wind-maiden lost during the night, and which the sun collected on her way across the lands to return them to their rightful owner.  
Whatever was the reason for those jewels and their disappearance, the sun clearly enjoyed peeking inside and entering every house it happened across. Many strangers greeted her with a smile or a tired mumble, but some outright ignored her. She didn’t like being ignored, and as such she didn’t really _caress_ the sleeping man she came across, but more poked him in the eyes with both of her fingers. _Time to wake up, silly_ , she would have said if he had listened, _You can sleep when the winter comes and I leave for good_.

A strained groan and a shaky movement to cover his head with his arms was all that he was capable if, at first. Waking up on the floor had apparently become a norm in Sven’s life. The sun’s horribleness was something new, though.  
When he managed to open his eyes and noticed that he was looking up at a wooden bench and a beautifully furnished room, he realised where he was. Where he had _stayed_. Never in his life could he remember scrambling up to his feet so quickly and regretting the following light-headedness so greatly. Then again, he remembered very little anyway.

It was early in the morning. The fireplace was dead and the room silent, and he was alone in it, but the very empty-looking pitcher on a small side-table was a rather clear sign of why he was still there in the lawman’s private meeting room. The papers that had caused all the trouble were cleared away, maybe added to the pile that lie on the desk further away in the front of the room.  
Had he passed out or had the lawman made him stay? Or just forbidden him for leaving in the fear that he would drown himself somewhere by accident. He couldn’t have drunk that much, could he? Sven looked down at himself, coming to the conclusion that he was as neat as he could be, and tried to blink against the bright morning light while brushing the escaping strands of black hair back from his face. He felt rather awful. Not only because of the uncomfortable situation or the dead taste in his mouth, but also because clear memory of the conversation from the previous night was already returning to him. No one was looking for him, and the thought felt very hollow inside his chest.  
That, and all the damned wine the lawman had been pouring him, which had unfortunately lead to an embarrassing amount of confused, sentimental nonsense about orphanhood. And perhaps he had eventually taken over the task of emptying the pitcher into his cup by himself.  
Sven turned around and buried his face into his hands with a sigh. He would have to get out of the room and thank for the _hospitality_ , but even the thought in itself was embarrassing enough.

He was more than a little grateful for the lawman’s patience. If he had been tasked with an evening of trying to reason with himself, he would have most likely thrown himself out of the house already by the first refill.  
With the tray in his hands he went looking for the kitchen. Perhaps that Disa would be there to tell him where to find the lord of the house. At least she would get good a laugh at his situation.

As it was, as soon as the girl saw him she told him that he must have been a light drinker, for she had never seen a grown man hold his spirits so poorly.  
Perhaps he hadn’t really been fond of drinking. He wouldn’t know. Though at that moment he was only embarrassed by the serving maid’s laughter.

* * *

"Disa," Faravid said to the serving-maid as he sorted out his papers for a few hearings that were going to be held later that day.  
"Yes, herre?"  
"I would like to see my wife. If you could send for her, I would be grateful."  
"Right away, sir? Now?" she asked and seemed the slightest bit surprised.  
"As soon as possible, yes."  


* * *

Ravens cried out hollow sounds somewhere above the streets. 

Thought was confused and ruffled, while Memory had a hard time knowing where it was. They had been so for a week or two already, and seemed to have trouble regarding Allfather’s wishes. The serving staff of the Royal Palace were left puzzled at their odd behaviour. It was as if they didn’t know where to fly.  
It was easy to hear that the ravens were calling out to someone, yelling threats that could be heard miles away. Huginn and Muninn wanted to find the one that troubled their master, but the task proved too difficult for them. Even the brightest of glimpses died out like a flickering candle. Only once had they managed to reach the mind they knew to look for, and it was days ago.

They looked down from where they were perched. Thought started to wonder about the situation at hand, and Memory quickly recalled that something else entirely was bound to happen on this day.

Fandral ran across the golden halls of the royal palace as fast as he could - well, at least as fast as he could without really having to break a sweat.  
Thor was coming. After the incredibly short time the prince had spent away from Asgard, a little more than a year, which had nonetheless felt like an insufferably long age, he was coming home. Finally. And Fandral was positively exhilarated at the chance to be the one to break the bad news to his friend, once again.  
Not.  
Thor was coming home all the same.

“I need a horse,” Fandral called out when he reached the stables and bent down to check that his boots were in order. One of the groom boys was quickly on his way to saddle a sleek black mare that threw its head up towards the ceiling of its stall.  
“Oh no, is Svarta really the only one inside?” he groaned when he saw the boy trying to get the animal to take the bit to its mouth. She trashed her head around so that the small star on her forehead looked like a white stripe, and judging by that she didn’t seem pleased. Fandral wasn’t either.  
“I’m sorry sir, she hasn’t been doing much work recently, she needs to have something to do as well as the rest of the herd or she will take it out on them. Gullr already had ugly bruises on his flank and lord Heimdall was not pleased,” the boy told him as quickly as he could while checking all the straps, not stopping his story despite Fandral’s tries to calm him down with his hands. The mare didn’t seem to get any happier about the fussing, and when the boy walked her out to the stable yard she pranced around like she was trying to jump and take off into the air.  
“Thank you,” Fandral grumbled to the stablehand as the boy held Svarta still when he mounted. There were no further pleasantries to be exchanged, oh no, for he and Svarta were off in a hasty trot as soon as his arse hit the saddle.

She was a hasty girl, snorting loudly and shaking her black head up and down and to the sides so that even Fandral - who did have some experience with all kinds of war horses - had problems with keeping the reins even. And, even though speed was a positive thing in the current situation, Fandral really hoped that the black hunter’s real master would have taken care of his crazy mare before ruining everything and disappearing from the face of Asgard.  
The two-beat rhythm of the trot quickly changed to a lot slower ambling way of going when the mare reached a wider street with less people.  
“Come on,” Fandral hissed and clicked his tongue and took a better hold of the reins.  
That was all he needed - through a short stretch of three-beat canter, and after a few odd hops, Svarta changed her way of going to a fast flying pace. Her shoes barely seemed to clash with the stone surface that soon turned to the ever-changing, luminous road of the Bifröst.  
Fandral did keep his tight hold of the reins, but it wasn’t as if they were actually _any use_. The horse wouldn’t slow down even if he yanked on her bit, so all he could do was steer and get his insides shaken out of place.

_Curse you, Loki, come back and fix this damned beast._

“Thor, my prince, how good it is to see your face! We have already grown weary of your absence!” Fandral called out, slightly out of breath, as Svarta danced her way to a halt. The horse perked her ears towards the tall, golden man stepping outside from the cocoon of magic that was the Bifröst Observatory.  
“I’d rather think you were relieved from having to see my mournful self,” Thor replied with a smile so bright and warm that could melt the sun itself. He seemed younger again, younger than in years, and happy to be home, when he asked: “How are things? You seem hasty.”  
And Fandral was doomed to ruin it for him.  
“I am well, and you are looking just as brilliant as I. Having said that, I must also admit that I have raced here on some more pressing matters than mere pleasantries,” he smiled, but could feel the expression faltering. Thor’s brow furrowed.  
“What is the matter?” he asked. Fandral could see him resting his right hand on Mjölnir’s handle, but it was probably more of an unconscious reflex than a real feeling of threat.

“I am truly sorry to be the one tell you all of this, but Sif, Volstagg and I decided that you must know before you step any further. Things are not as they were when you left”, Fandral sighed. “The strom that you and Loki left in his wake is... still raging.”  
“Fandral.”  
“General Tyr also thought that there was something doubtful about this,” he hurried to add.  
“Why are you bringing up Loki?”  
“Ah. That is a funny question - seeing as I was given one of his horses to ride as you likely noticed - and…” words failed him. How was he supposed to explain the explosive course of the chain of events he hardly understood himself? The endless stepping and snorting of the black horse forced Fandral to dismount, but perhaps it was for the best. He wanted to be able to reach out to Thor’s shoulder with his free hand even if the other was holding the reins.  
“The thing is... that somehow your brother has caused quite a lot of commotion even after his death in Svartalfheim.” Thor didn’t answer, but his eyes narrowed.  
“He seems to be quite skilled at evading Hel,” Fandral tried again. The confused anger in Thor’s eyes disappeared, and Fandral could see the moment the thought flickered to a flame in Thor’s mind. The man didn’t seem willing to feed the spark if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.  
“What are you…?” implying, trying to say, claiming… Whatever it was, Thor didn’t finish his sentence and took a step closer. Fandral held back a grimace.  
“I am saying that he is _very_ skilled in getting lost on his way there, even though Helvegen is supposed to be a one-way road.” The glare he got from Thor was enough to stop the additional circles he was treading with his words. “As in, apparently he didn’t die.”  
“If I find out that you are trying to trifle with this matter, Fandral, there is not a -”  
“I am not!” he snapped, more harshly than he intended, but the stress and uncertainty were really eating away at his nerves. “I had to let you know about the state of things. When Heimdall sent word that you were coming, I headed for the stables as quickly as I could - and look at the horse, she’s sweating from that sprint. Everything and everyone is upset and out of order. No one knew of Loki until a few weeks ago!”  
“How?” Thor demanded and looked at him intently. Svarta kicked the air somewhere behind Fandral and he cleared his throat.  
“When he… uh… Well, I think you will see the pattern if I tell you that it was not Allfather who let you leave Asgard,” Fandral said.  
“...where is he.”  
“Loki? Or your father?”  
“Either one of them!” Thor snarled. Gone was the bright weather he had seemed to carry with him, and Fandral half thought he could already hear a roll of thunder in the distance.  
“This is exactly why I wanted to come here to tell you the news, Thor! Whatever you do, you cannot confront your father about this so directly, he… I do not know - no one knows - what he did with Loki,” he told in a hushed voice, though he didn’t know why he felt like whispering. “One bright day there was a horrible scene in the palace, all of a sudden everyone was running around and yelling incoherently like a flock of geese. ‘Odin, we found Odin, the Allfather is here’. Then a whole squadron of einherjar dragged away _Loki_ of all people, and he hasn’t been seen since. No one knows what happened, and no one has dared to ask.”

Thor didn’t say a thing for a while, and Fandral didn’t know how to express his wishes of things returning to normal. Unfortunately their lives were already past the point of no return.  
“Heimdall would know… Would he not?” Thor said, and his voice was softer as well.  
“He hasn’t really spoken to me since. Even Sif has not been able to get him to talk about what happened.”  
“We must meet. Tonight. After I have made myself known to Odin.”  
Fandral didn’t have an answer as quickly as he should have, because his mount stole his turn to speak. Svarta gave a loud snort and yanked her head up towards the sky, flattening her ears against her neck with a whinnying sound. Two ravens were circling above their heads. Two black dots against the bright sky.  
“Be careful,” Fandral suddenly felt like saying. Thor only nodded in return. Neither of them had really ever thought that it would be a needed warning, not until the recent times. Loki would have always said it, regardless of everyone else’s battle-heated thoughts.

“You can take the horse if you want to.”  
“No, thank you, I would rather a mad bull were my steed,” Thor laughed and Fandral smiled in return. It was worth the try, and at least he managed to bring the smile back to Thor’s eyes.  
“I’ll tell Sif and Volstagg,” Fandral promised when he started to reach for Svarta’s stirrup. “It is good to have you back - our numbers have been sorely lacking with three missing.”

* * *

The summer day went swiftly by when flocks of busy people hurried from one place to another and lined up at Kingsyard’s doorstep. There were over a thousand people still on the island when you added the families of the actual hundred or so draft-qualified men, and it was a lot for a place that normally had perhaps three hundred inhabitants. Finding anyone from such a mess was difficult. (And doubly so if you were still slightly hungover.)  
Even so, Sven felt surprisingly comfortable in the stream of faces. It wasn’t as suffocating as he would have thought - almost familiar in a very foreign way. And he did find the people he was looking for. Einar’s household and the workers, Ukko and Rauni and a young woman with three small children were gathered by a large oak tree. 

“Sven!” Ukko hollered and waved at him as soon as he spotted him. “We were already beginning to think that you had got yourself lost somewhere.”  
“Luckily I had not,” he answered with a slight smile and took the hand Ukko offered him (not going for his arm, though for some reason it was again the first reaction he thought about). He wasn’t prepared for when the old man yanked him closer and pulled him to a hug, slapping his upper back a few times before letting go. Had they been _worried_ about him?  
“I am so sorry for not having even thought about this summer’s Hundreds’. I should have discussed these things with you beforehand, Sven. This could’ve been a complete disaster with you knowing nothing about anything,” Ukko said in a serious voice, his beard shaking with his stern words, and pointed his index finger at Sven. His gaze was tense, but it melted away soon into a more familiar expression. Not quite a smile, but something calm and contemplating.  
“Seeing as you’re still in one piece the lawman was apparently satisfied with what you had to say for him? Did he keep you there all night?”  
“Yes. He seems quite convinced that I have been dropped from his record due to… having been orphaned,” he answered curtly, not knowing how to elaborate the made-up fact that was nevertheless making him feel a bit uncomfortable. Ukko nodded and guided him towards the rest. He leaned a little bit closer to Sven and lowered his voice.  
“Rauni may disapprove of you talking towards her direction, so you should know to be careful,” he said. Sven nearly stopped on his tracks of surprise, but didn’t have a chance to ask questions before Ukko did: “How much wine did the he manage to get into you, Sven? I hope this is not going to become a habit.” Sven quickly lifted the back of his hand up to his mouth and _for the sake of all good things in this world_ his breath smelled absolutely terrible.

“I- I am so sorry, I should have… _done_ something about this - it is most definitely not going to become a habit, I promise that I will stick to something softer - no, I am sorry, this is horrible. I did not do anything stupid, I promise, and I truly didn’t plan this,” he blurted out, voice straining from trying to speak quickly and silently at the same time. And now he was sure that Ukko was laughing at him. Clapping his arm and smiling warmly.  
“It’s alright, sven. No harm done, seeing as you’re up at a time people should be,” he said, but Sven also saw the other half of the sentence hanging in the air in between them. _If you start doing that on a regular basis, there will be no friendly smiles._  
“I stayed there until morning, but not only because of the... wine,” he assured Ukko, and the old man nodded with a deep, calm breath, “We discussed things at length but he said that he could ask my signature for some things,” Sven hesitated, “a bit later, when I have learned how to write it.”  
“We’ll look into that as soon as there’s time. Remind me about it if I forget,” Ukko promised. “And we’ll make you a written paper for your place.”  
Things were going to turn out alright. He _existed_ officially, Sven from Fairholm, and he was welcome to the place. He was getting to know people and he knew how many things worked. He would learn to write again, some day soon.  
“Thank you,” he said, trying to ignore the strange tightness inside his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked writing from the Sun's perspective. Also, more Thor, yay, and Fandral too!
> 
> Thank you for the new kudos! I'd love to hear what you thought of this chapter - I'm finally trying to tie a few loose strings together.


	13. Where Did You Serve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some tensions are unearthed and done away with, some new questions emerge.  
> Also, violence must be avoided at all costs.

The more elderly folk and heads of families gathered at Kingsyard, the more those who were young or croftless flocked together to wait for the end of the day.  
When the blazing midday turned into a bright afternoon and then to a sunlit evening, a bonfire was kindled near a few small town houses along the main street. Sven couldn’t really think of it as anything else than a dirt road with a few odd cobblestones here and there, but Arvi called it a street. 

The square was full of life and chatter. One of the long logs that were raised from the ground to act as benches was already cleared when everyone’s attention snapped towards it - someone cried out like a bird of prey from the emptied area. Sven was reminded of the ravens in his dreams the other week.  
“Come on, who wants to go first!” hollered a blonde man with huge shoulders. He was quickly joined by a shorter, stern-faced man with short, mousy hair and a crooked nose. He kicked off his boots before stepping towards the log. Some people cheered.  
“Now that you don’t have anything to keep you with that King’s Snake, Sven, you can join the fun,” Arvi said, popping up from somewhere and stepping next to him. Sven frowned. To him the lawman had seemed like a polite and pleasant host, and calling him a snake sounded a bit harsh. He looked at Arvi, and even though his dark brows were heavy as ever he seemed to enjoy himself. It was probably better not to ruin the good mood.  
“Is this the game you were talking about?” Sven asked, and Arvi nodded, brushing his ear-length hair away from his eyes. The big blonde had managed to drag a younger and lankier man to stand on the other end of the log while people were helping the first man on the other.  
“About the only fun anyone can have during these meetings and things.” 

Arvi’s game was a very stupid but popular one, and it only involved two players at a time. They were to stand within an arm’s reach from each other, on the log, and try to disturb the other’s balance so that they would be left standing on the log alone. Deliberate hits in the head and face were forbidden, but that was the only rule.  
Outright fighting in the streets was forbidden, ‘acts of violence were to be avoided at all costs’, as were arranged hound, cock and horse fights. Apparently this was just on the acceptable side of the line between wrestling and playing.  
After the young boy lost, and a flock of girls went to help him up, the game went on. It was interesting enough, but Sven could have done with a little bit of peace and silence in stead of people, noise and action.

* * *

“A mindless man stays up at night, worrying about his woes,” Arvi said. Despite his permanent frown it sounded like he was reciting a joke instead of an old poem, “By morning light he’s still as tired, and old troubles await.” “Thank you for the insightful notion. Was that all?” Sven nodded back at him, surprised and slightly irritated. He hadn’t expected to be brought back from his thoughts. “You’ve been really quiet today, is all. I was simply wondering about your face - you look like the lawman told you about your own funeral,” Arvi said and tilted his head, trying to make sense of things. He was wearing the same dark shirt he had had when they got to Kingsyard yesterday, but it had already taken a hit or two from the sandy earth after the log. Sven sighed and turned his gaze towards the bonfire and the fighting.

“Not quite. He told me that most likely I should not even be alive,” he said. Perhaps it was a stupid thing to say out loud, Arvi wasn’t answering anything for a long while. A few feet away from them a group of people had started singing.  
“Well,” Arvi said and clapped his hands on his thighs before getting up, “I don’t know about that any more than you do. But you should come up there - I want to see if I can get you to fall from those spider legs of yours after what you did to me the other week after you woke me up.”  
“What?” Sven asked, looking up at the other man. Arvi held back a laugh.  
“It’s a challenge. I want to try if I could beat you when I’m not sleepy and surprised. Either you accept it or you’re a coward.”

* * *

“Arvi is down, third in a row!” the big blonde yelled and there were cheers and laugh all around the fighting ring. The peeled log was worn down to a smooth, surprisingly difficult surface from years of sitting and stepping on. Sven didn’t really know what had happened, but his arms were longer than Arvi’s and it gave him an advantage. For some reason looking down at Arvi, scrambling up from the sand once again cursing and grinning, made him laugh out loud. Perhaps for the first time ever. It was hurting his cheeks and it made his eyes water but it felt better than anything in a long time. “You have the weirdest laugh in the world, nobody sounds like that,” he huffed as he climbed up on his feet. It didn’t help at all even though Sven was trying to hold the unsteady huffs of laughter back as best he could. “I think that someone does, what with the sound coming out of my own mouth,” he chuckled.  
“Apparently he does,” Eero told Arvi as he skipped closer and offered a hand to pull him up.  
“Yes, so I hear,” Arvi grinned when he was upright again and grabbed Sven’s hand tightly to shake it.  
“I did give you a fight,” he said, pointedly but with a good-natured tilt of his head.  
“Oh yes, several times,” Sven laughed and got a hard punch to the shoulder in reply. He got down from the log and Eero was already trying to challenge him into another row of fights, but against him that time.  
“Well, you must be more agile than Arvi is,” he said, ( _“Excuse me?” said Arvi_ ) feigning suspicion, “I might _lose_ the fight to you, and it would be rather embarrassing.” The boy grinned and swatted his shoulder as if to say ‘Fine, I’ll buy it this once’. It was enough for Sven.  
“Alright, Arvi then! Get back up, I’m going to beat you this time!” the younger man exclaimed and shoved Arvi back towards the log.  
“I’ll cheer for you from the bench over there!” Sven promised and turned away to head towards the edge of the square. He didn’t get the chance to find a seat.

“Hey you, funny-looking fellow.” 

The voice was flat and rough and loud. Some men and women in his direction fell silent and Sven stopped, but didn’t turn around.  
“Yeah you, who walks funny,” a man called out again. Sven scoffed to himself - he wasn’t going to dignify something as pathetic as that with an answer, no matter how much he wanted to, and no matter how many dumb retorts were cooking up in his mind, it was hardly even a real insult, he -  
“At least I do not waddle like a wounded goose,” Sven said. He blinked after he realised what he had said _without even knowing who_ he was talking to, and cursed his own tongue. He wanted to kick himself. People were audibly standing up around him but no one said a thing. He straightened his posture slightly, taking a deep breath and waiting for the answer.  
“I see you talk funny, too. You must be a fine jester,” the man said with a harder edge to his voice, walking so close to Sven that he could almost feel his elbow brushing the other man’s arm, “ _Sven_ ,” he spat. “What’s your real name?”  
“You just said it for yourself,” Sven said as calmly as he could without sounding like he was trying to be calm. It was getting slightly difficult to take a deep, even breath. Why were the hairs in the back of his neck suddenly standing up? He spared a glance to his right to see the man with a crooked nose who had been the first to start the games earlier.  
“No one is believing that. Stop dodging the talk and tell me your name,” Crook-nose said, and it was a command. Not a command like the lawman’s ‘Sit down, Sven’ or Rauni’s ‘Help me wash the carrots, Sven’. It was more of a violent cousin of _‘Know your place, brother’_.  
He couldn’t hold on to the thought any longer than that. There was the slightest of stinging pains in the back of his eyes, but it was unfortunately quickly starting to throb through his whole head. His heart was beating harder as well.

“My name is Sven,” was the first reaction his brains provided. It was a very stupid one, repeating things like a child was hardly clever, and the slightly bothered feeling he had was quickly turning into a very uneasy one. A hand clamped on his shoulder, hard.  
( _Grabbing the fingers that held him, bringing his own arm up behind the other and yanking forward, twisting with his own weight, kicking the balance off and breaking and -_ and? There was a turning feeling in his stomach and he actually didn’t want to know what followed those thoughts.) He didn’t want a fight.  
“People called you that before you came here?” Crook-nose asked, and Sven held back a grimace. The real answer was no. Of course he knew that, but he didn’t want to think about it.  
Instead he said: “I have been called that ever since I can remember.”  
“Lies have short tracks, you know.”  
“As do the dead,” he bit out without knowing exactly why. He didn’t want to start the fight.

Sven was vaguely aware of a loud clap.

The world rang in abrupt silence and he yanked his head forward again without really seeing anything. Soon the entire right half of his face felt like it was sparking. Crook-nose still had his hand raised.  
“If anyone is dead it’ll be you. I ask you a question, you answer it without weaving a riddle,” the man growled impatiently and yanked Sven around by his shirt, “Who are you? And why have you come here, you... lying spindleshanks bastard.”  
In the end, the slap and the words were the first real insult he had received, and in a heartbeat it turned his insides into such a tight knot that he felt sick.  
“Me? You are asking _me_ who _I am_ when I have just been held at court before all the land!” he spat, “You are demanding from me _my name_? You have not even introduced your own sad self before assaulting mine,” and oh how he did want to start a fight. He shoved crook-nose hard, taking small enjoyment in the way the bulkier man took half a step back to ground himself. Then he shoved him back.  
“My sad self doesn’t need to be introduced to you as anything else than _sir_ ,” crook-nose growled.  
“With that amount of talk you should try a bit harder to prove its worth.”

The first real blow wasn’t Sven’s doing, but he managed to dodge the forceful attack. It gave him the momentum he needed to yank the man forward to his reach and hit the heel of his hand against his throat. Crook-nose grunted loudly and his posture faltered.  
Confusion won over. What was he doing? He didn’t want to choke the man he just wanted to stop this and be on his way and he was not used to something like this and he was feeling anxious and lost -  
Crook-nose was not. He grabbed him by the elbow to twist hard towards the ground and Sven yelped. The man used full force to shove him down, with both hands, bending his arm in a direction arms weren’t supposed to bend and it made his shoulder scream. He refused to stumble any further than that and tried to think as quickly as he could, yanking himself away from the man proved futile. Sven rammed himself against the man’s chest with his entire weight, and the hold loosened enough for him to get loose.  
“ _Helvete_ ,” crook-nose hissed, but to Sven’s dismay he seemed to know what he was doing. It was clear in his steps and the way he aimed to get a hold around his middle. After taking half a step back Sven punched crook-nose in the jaw with his elbow - the man more roared than shouted something at him. He kicked the man in the shin and received a painful yank in his hair. If he could have reached around to a proper choke hold he could have won, he could have done anything. Somewhere around them people were beginning to shout. Sven didn’t hear enough past the loud thumping of blood in his ears to make out what they were saying.  
He got a fist straight to his face, against his nose and cheek, another one to his stomach, and fell down with a loud gasp. Sven heard himself breathing loudly through his nose but crook-face was at least as loud as he raised his fist to a new blow. Scrambling half-way back up as quickly as he could Sven aimed for crook-nose’s legs instead, dragging the man to the ground with him, both grappling for leverage over the other. He was going to break the man’s thick neck - twist his head around and ram it into the ground.

Sven saw the knife only after it was already aimed at his throat.  
“VALTO!” someone screamed. Hands were swarming into his vision, holding him back and ripping the other man’s vest from his grasp. Holding crook-nose back and twisting the knife hand away.  
“Drop the knife for heaven’s sake! What is possessing you two asses!”  
He was breathing hard and the left side of his face felt warm. Crook-nose’s eyebrows were so scarce and pale they hardly existed but the shadows around his eyes were still violent. Bruised as well.  
Had Sven hit him so?  
“Valto, you log-head! Why do you keep doing this?” a young woman cried out.  
“The rabbit spawn was begging for it.”  
“Says the cowardly dog who came upon me while hiding a knife behind his back!” Sven snapped but was instantly dragged a notch further. It didn’t actually matter - his arms and hands were tingling and the coiling mess inside his chest was a very uncomfortable feeling. He didn’t really feel like struggling anymore.  
His upper lip and right cheek were suddenly blazing in pain, and he could see a flash of red on the bottom edge of his vision. Something hot was dribbling down his chin and he didn’t think it was spit.  
“Looks like you bit through your lip in addition to everything else,” someone said, turning his chin. The touch had him halfway to lashing out but several hands were holding him still. After a few blinks Sven recognised the face as Helga’s. She was looking grim and dusty and her dark brown hair was running down her shoulders in two thick plaits. Sven could feel his heart racing away like a horse and wanted to scream.  
“I did?” he asked instead, trying to focus on Helga’s grey eyes. They were raking through him from head to toe, but she didn’t say a thing.  
“Get up,” someone ordered and he was dragged on his feet by several pairs of hands. Helga’s brother among a few other men.  
“What on earth is your problem!” Arvi barked at him, appearing suddenly from the blurred edges of his vision. He didn’t have an answer.  
“He’d better start talking or I will put the knife to use,” crook-nose, Valto, yelled. The girl at his side let out an angry chirp, and he was silenced when the wide blonde stepped in through the crowd. Sven didn’t dare open his mouth either.  
“Do we need the lawman or some of the _borgare_ here to sort the trouble out, or will you two shake hands and tie the ends together again?” he asked. The phrase sounded strange but Sven did understand the meaning. 

(He had won.)

Sven shrugged off the hold on his arms and shoulders and took a cautious step closer. Crook-nose sneered but stayed where he was, perhaps in part only because they were surrounded by everyone else. He offered a hand to crook-nose, palm open.  
“So you are called Valto? It is a pleasure to hear your name before starting a conversation,” he said when the man grabbed it, and even though a bone or two in his palm may have broken from the squeeze the small insult was worth it.  
“Where did you serve?” crook-nose asked, softer and lower than anything that he had said before. Sven frowned.  
“I fear I do not understand the question,” he replied. All the soft understanding that had been visible a breath earlier disappeared in a flash. Valto let go of his hand like it was a bundle of snakes.  
“Is there someone else who wants to have a go!” he yelled to the bystanders before storming off through them. Some went after him. Sven took a step to join them - what right had the man to balk from their truce like that, more so after a common agreement - but the wide shoulders and arms of the blonde man stopped him.  
“He’s been like that for a while now, you must not take it personally. Soile will get him to calm down,” the man said. He grabbed Sven’s hand, “Onni, nice to meet you.”  
“...Sven. The pleasure is mine.”  
“You should tidy yourself up a little before someone comes asking about the fight.”

Arvi and his friends dragged him away to sit around the fire, where he sat down and pressed a cool towel against the right half of his face. The longer he sat the more he was starting to feel all of the bruises on his body. The towel had a red stain on it from where his mouth still bled. He didn’t like the feeling. Hilmar was telling a tale of how he and Helga had caught the biggest fish of their life some ten years ago. Everyone around the fire was laughing and many had managed to find cups for ale. Arvi was pushing one towards Sven, but he was so tired and queasy and sore that he could have fallen asleep right there. He declined as politely as he could.  
"Come on, one round of drinks can't be that bad. Or are you afraid that after a pint you will get all emotional?" Arvi laughed. It was a rude question (it was a joke) because it was exactly what had already happened with the lawman (and Arvi didn’t know that). He shook his head.  
“Will you finally start telling more about yourself?”  
"No, I will turn violent and start beating your face," Sven snapped.  
Arvi fell silent and the laughter died on his lips. His dark brows furrowed again and he looked at Sven in a very confused manner he couldn’t quite recognise. Surprised or offended? He couldn’t say. His own frustration seemed to have disappeared.  
"I was kidding you,” Arvi said. He was offended, and even though he tried to hide some of it Sven heard it now.  
"...I know," he admitted through the towel.  
"You can really be a sour bastard, do you know that?" the shorter man scoffed.  
"I do,” Sven said. “And I apologise. But I don’t feel like drinking.”  
“Yeh, it isn’t like you could just… sit with the rest of us and enjoy the present company and the talk.”  
“That is not what I meant.”  
“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for the lovely kudos!  
> Fighting scenes are surprisingly difficult but this was a fun chapter - I felt like it was a good place to break up the careful pattern of the previous chapters a little.  
> This has not been beta-read, again, so if you spot something odd, please point it out! 
> 
> Let me know what you think, I'll use your thoughts on what was good and what can be improved in the future chapters. Also, next time we will probably meet the lawman's wife, and go say hi to Thor again. Or not. Perhaps we'll hear some thoughts from Rauni instead.
> 
> Some words/names I used and thought to share  
>  _Pukkitappelu:_ I didn't use the name but lit. "Buck fight" or "sawhorse fight", an old traitional game on which this chapter was based  
>  _Borgare:_ bourgeoisie, traders, borg also meaning a city or a castle  
>  _Valto:_ Finnish short form of Valdemar (Valdr+meri; leader/power+fame) or a version of the word valta (rule over something)  
>  _Onni:_ Luck, happiness. A male name.


	14. The Dreams Were Ugly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dismal, you say? Folk songs tend to be.  
> Wise, says he? There might just be a seed of truth in that.

“Arvi, sing a song and we will join you. Otherwise you will be stuck with that grumpy face for all eternity,” Helga sighed at some point.  
“And you can really do without the help. No one wants to see that happen,” Eero huffed. Arvi didn’t exactly seem overjoyed at the chance, but shrugged nonetheless. He glanced at Sven and raised a brow.  
“So, the lawman says you are one of the market poor?” he asked. The question felt uncomfortable - that, and his face still hurt - so Sven could only tilt his head as an answer. He didn’t really know, and Arvi seemed to read it from his face, because he nodded like he had come to a decision. He would have to learn to control his expressions better.  
After a few short hums Arvi sang, and though his voice was not a light and soft one, it stayed in tune.

“ _A poor lord he lived on the largest of isles,_ ” Arvi began, “ _He sold his own daughter for a half loaf of bread. You will now wander hard ways of foreign land._  
_Seamen they lowered their oars overboard. Sweet maiden she twisted her hands till forth came blood_ ,” and Arvi looked at Helga at that point. She rolled her eyes but joined in for a role of the poor sold girl:  
“ _O, my sweet seamen, wait a while more, I see my brother come through the rose red wood._ ” Sven listened, as did many others around the fire, and couldn’t help but wonder who made up all these songs.  
“ _O, brother dear no more have you than two foals of gold, but one can you sell off and free me again! I want not to wander hard ways of foreign land,_ ” sang Helga.  
“ _No more have I left than two foals of gold, but neither can I sell and free thee again. You will now wander hard ways of foreign land_ ,” Arvi answered, and so the tale continued. The girl begged for her promised husband as well, to sell one of his golden rings to save her. He couldn’t do it either.

“That was all rather… dismal,” Sven said after a short while of silence.  
“I know,” replied Arvi, “That’s what poverty and hunger are. Luckily things are better nowadays.”  
“Or were,” said Eero softly, “Father says that the taxes are rising quite a lot and they say that this will be a wet summer when the clouds change.”  
“Well, here’s to hoping that they won’t,” someone said and a round of ale was served again.

* * *

As the night progressed Arvi stayed silent, even though Helga glared at the both of them like they were children or misbehaving goats. Sven did apologise, after some hesitation, and Arvi said that it was alright even though he did remain seemingly irritated. Fortunately, the next day his frown was already back to normal. Einar and Maire announced that their household was leaving, now that everything important had been settled.

(“The next time you pick up a fight, Sven,” Ukko said as they parted, “either apologise or make sure that you have better arms than the other fellow. I think it would do you good to hear that Valto is no beginner when it comes to these matters. Luckily all you got was that nasty bruise on your chin.” If Sven could have found out how the man had heard all about the evening so quickly, he would have felt like a much smarter man. Alas.)

The hot summer weather was as relentless as before, but luckily the wind was rising and blowing harder than before. Rowing back to Cattle Island was quicker than the other way - though perhaps only because there was another boat heading same way and it turned into a race. The bright, salty waves glittered in sunlight and the splashing of the sea was everywhere.  
The servant-girl ran from the house as soon as she spotted them to help with her masters’ belongings. Eero was the first to jump out of the boat and didn’t offer any help in dragging it to the shore. The little peeve was actually laughing at Sven and Helga when they managed to drop the stern side of the boat on their toes. He did help with the ceiling work again, though, and proved his worth in reaching all the little nooks.  
They had green pea soup for lunch. Some leftover bread in the evening. Arvi said that it was dry enough to be horse feed, and no one could really argue. 

That night Sven dreamed again.  
The dreams were ugly.

Every time he let his eyes fall shut he felt the ground disappearing from underneath. There was a flash of colour, before he saw countless cold stars scattered across black space. He saw long queues of people shrouded in shadows, flashes of red, and there was always a feeling of falling. Endlessly, without control, and he didn’t know where he was going. After what felt like an eternity of numbing horror he woke up, covered in sweat and out of breath. Someone snored next to him, and they were all four sleeping on a hay bed in the common hall again. He didn’t want to wake anyone up.

The ravens were there. Far away in the distance, where the sky and the earth met each other, there was glittering light. However, the ravens seemed to come flying from that place and it made him feel uneasy. Wherever he went under the red and purple skies, or whatever he dreamed of, they followed just out of sight. Even when he couldn’t hear their cawing sounds he knew that they were watching and following him.  
Once he thought that he remembered them from somewhere, but only briefly, moments before they started flinging themselves at his face and clawing at his eyes with sharp black talons.

When the ravens left, they took everything with them, and he was left with only a black nothing. He was blind, deaf and mute, unable to scream or shout and incapable of knowing where he was or what was happening to him. Back in the space where he fell, but this time there were no stars. He was so far away from home and feeling so cold and hollow that he was starting to get a feeling that he might not have been alive anymore.  
He needed to get away, he wanted out of the suffocating nothing, and he just wanted to end it all already. His body was caving in from how hollow his chest had become.  
Or so he thought before he found something to latch onto.  
There was a softly pulsating, searing blue light in the middle of the surrounding darkness, and he held to it like a drowning man. It was a brisk willow-branch, lifting him from the deep and offering him something to lean on. The light pierced his head and flooded his senses, dulling them, but he could feel his heart beating harder and faster - out of rhythm - blood roaring in his ears and fingertips. The light flickered in tune with the straining organ once more alive inside his chest. He was cold all over but his heart was burning.  
Violent hands were pulling him to all directions and clawing at him. He was rather sure that the final one holding his throbbing heart was one of his own.

It was a memory, and he was certain of it. Sadly he forgot it again. The ravens woke him up with sharp commands straight into his ear.  
**Stop hiding!** said one. **Show yourself!** said the other.

* * *

At least Sven was an enthusiastic man, that was clear for anyone with eyes and ears. It was good, it made him a very precise and fast learner, and the last thing Arvi would have wanted was a slow and clumsy airhead hindering their work. Apart from that Sven was also very curious about everything around him. Everything from the care of cattle to the big lords of the outland military power seemed to spark numerous questions and make him hungry for even more useless stories. It was a little odd, but not in a bad way. It was also interesting to see that he actually had some hidden skill and spark to fight with. A loud, insulting bark and a kick in the face were not what you’d first think when you saw the man.

That being said, Arvi still wasn’t happy when he was yelped awake, kicked in the head from out of nowhere, and finally properly woken up with a soft shake of a bony hand on his shoulder.  
“Arvi? Oh, so sorry… I fear I may have woken you up again,” Sven whispered in that awfully formal way that he spoke. Arvi didn’t know if it was because the man was a little dull in the head any way and knew no better, or because he was actually clever and only trying not to ruin things when having a conversation. But _in the middle of the night?_  
“Yes, you did,” he replied, even though what came out of his mouth was more of a ‘mhms emd’.  
“You woke up everyone,” Helga mumbled from across her brother and threw a shoe at them, though it fell short and the shoe dropped on Hilmar’s chest instead. (The snoring bastard hardly paused to take a breath in his sleep, so apparently _not_ everyone.) The hand on Arvi’s shoulder froze, but before long Helga’s breathing evened out again.  
“I am sorry… I will try to keep quiet,” Sven mumbled and pulled back to his spot. It was silent for a long while, and Arvi could clearly hear that Sven was not trying to go back to sleep.

“They say that dreams tell us about things in this world as well,” Arvi mumbled to break the silence, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Sven said nothing, and it left the room feeling tense.  
“Maybe you should talk about them instead. At least to someone. And since I’m already awake, and there’s probably only some time left before sunrise anyway, you’d better spill it. Maybe tomorrow night I can even get some sleep,” he tried again and hoped that the way he mumbled it sounded more like amused than annoyed.  
“It was only a dream, and it did not make any sense if that is what you’re after,” Sven said. He sounded unsure, like he was grinding his teeth together. Arvi was waiting quietly and looking at the nearly finished ceiling above them. Something clearly troubled Sven, and he was in no hurry.  
“There was a foggy… uh…”  
“Foggy field?” he tried softly to get the words out of Sven when they died. It sounded like a good option, but he provided another just be sure: “Sea?”  
“No, no, more like a foggy feeling. I was in the fog and everything was dark when…” Sven said, but cut himself off and sat up straighter. Arvi could hear a breath that was too deep and slow to have been natural, but didn’t comment on it. It wasn’t his place, really.  
“Was there anything else in the… foggy fog?” he asked and tried to crane his neck so that he could see Sven better in the dim of the hall. His hair was so black that it seemed to blend into the shadows around his pale face and neck, and it all made him look very strange. And from his narrow arms Arvi would have never guessed that Sven could have managed to keep Valto from trouncing him.  
“Well, there were a lot of things, but especially stars,” the man said.  
“Stars? In the fog?” Arvi asked. He was too tired to put much thought into it, but apparently it was a good enough answer, since it made Sven smile a little and let out a short hum.  
“May be.”  
“So where were you then?” Arvi asked him. Sven had to pause for a while and the half of a smile disappeared. Apparently the question was not as good as its elder.  
“I don’t really know. There was an odd light in the horizon,” Sven told, and while the story started steadily, it started to become fragile, “And then I was falling from somewhere… actually I am not even certain of the time of day it was supposed to be, I could never really… Besides, there were… um.” Sven glanced past Arvi a few times. His words failed and he ended up gesturing half-heartedly with his hands. And damn him, the fellow was actually looking so lost that for a moment Arvi felt really bad for being even somewhat pissed at him.  
“Were you alone in there?” he asked. Sven visibly steeled himself and his expression became more neutral.  
“...No. There were two black ravens,” the man said, and in all truth it was nothing Arvi had expected. Was Sven afraid of birds?  
“Ravens?” he asked, some of the disbelief seeping through his sleepy voice.  
“Yes. The foulest creatures I have ever seen. They kept screaming things at me and… attacking me,” Sven admitted slowly. Arvi frowned, and he was getting an odd feeling. Perhaps he was a little worried.  
“They are blaming me for something. I should know them from somewhere,” Sven said and sighed. “Or perhaps it was just a nightmare and I am… making a bull from a fly? Was that how the saying goes?” he asked with a weary-looking smile. Arvi laughed a little but gave a more sober nod afterwards, and for a while neither of them said a thing.

Ravens were the largest birds around after sun’s great eagles. They were black as coal, cunning and cruel, and cleverer than any other animal around - save for the fox, perhaps. Only after a few thoughts that raced each other like slugs in tar Arvi snapped upright and looked at Sven. It was a very clumsy and stupid idea, but it was exactly what all the things Sven had said added up to.  
“Maybe you’re a wise one,” he hissed. It was Sven’s turn to look confused.  
“You know, a witch,” Arvi suggested. Ravens were birds of the spirits, after all, and everyone had always said that the old Pretty Wrongleg was one. Sven froze, however, blinked once and then frowned.  
“A witch…?” he asked slowly, and Arvi could almost feel how his increasingly relaxed air changed to a very tense one.  
“They say that the raven is a bird of wisdom. The bird of magical folk,” Arvi said. “Talking to them sounds like witchcraft to me.”  
“...are you mocking me?” Sven asked. Arvi was close to laughing, but then again, it seemed like a sincere question. It deserved a sincere answer.  
“Even if I were, at least you stopped shaking,” he smirked. After that he received a face-full of hay. “I am not mocking you, you idiot. I was telling what I have been told when I said that dreams can tell us things.”  
“Yes, well, it is good to hear that I am just so magical that it hinders my ability to _sleep_ ,” Sven snorted.  
“Or, maybe you just heard a raven during the night and are making a bull from a fly.”  
“Maybe,” Sven said.  
“Can you two magicians just go back to sleep already,” Helga mumbled, and that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before checking back on Thor and gang, we have now concluded all of importance that happened at Kingsyard, yay! I would have loved to write Asgard already, but I really needed to get this one here in between.
> 
> If you spot any mistakes, please point them out so I can fix them. And keep on commenting, I love reading your thoughts and I will also answer them happily!
> 
> The song lyrics are loosely translated from an old Swedish ballad, which you can listen to as Garmarna's version [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q4gOUlzuuM) if you're interested. Some liberties were taken, but only with place names, so my translation still fits more or less. Poor auctions were definitely a thing in old-timey Nordic states, and already before institutional "takings into custody" of such manner have children from poor families been sold away as serving slaves for richer households.


	15. Parsimonious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people like to keep a tight check of their money and personal belongings. The setting is revealed.

The palace gates were repaired as grand and golden as they had been before Malekith’s attack, and Thor couldn’t help realising how much masons and architects the rebuilding work must have employed. He wondered where those men and women were. If they had got a proper payment for their master craftsmanship.  
Those thoughts soon dissipated, but another kind of heaviness settled upon Thor’s shoulders when he searched out his father.

The last time he remembered seeing the grey face in front of him, Thor could have sworn that the expression was… softer, somehow. With all its hard edges and worn lines Odin’s eyes had still held a glint of something else. Something a little brighter despite the tragedy they had been forced to face.  
Of course, the fact that there had been another person behind said eyes could add up to something. Now Thor saw his father as the man really was - the king of gods was looking down at him with his eyes glinting more like precise steel than the eyes of a parent meeting their child. There was no room for any ‘funny business’, that much Thor gathered immediately when he stepped inside the grand drawing room. There was no room for anything else than Thor, Odin, and the intricate, sturdy furniture of the room.  
He missed mother, he really did. He also sincerely wanted to strangle Loki, but only in part, for he missed him as well.

“Thor,” Odin said, voice ringing clear as ever, though it was also steely and weary, as it had been for the last decade. And, what felt like almost an afterthought, “My son.”  
“My father, Your Highness,” Thor replied slowly in the same manner and looked at Odin warily. He didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what he was going to hear. Something changed in his father’s eyes but he couldn’t say what it was. And perhaps it wasn’t his place to start with blaming things on anyone.  
“I trust that you have enjoyed your stay in Midgard?” Odin asked, slowly, raising a brow, to which Thor could only answer by nodding and attempting a smile behind his beard. He didn’t think it quite reached his eyes.  
“Yes, I have helped Jane Foster her in her research,” he said.  
“Then what brings you home, my son?” Odin asked, turning to walk around the wide desk to leaf through some very official-looking documents and signatures. The note in his voice changed to something more pleasant, less pleased, and Thor hesitated. Gungnir was not to be seen anywhere near his father’s hand, nor was he wearing the ceremonial cloak or armour of stately gatherings, but there was still a foreboding tension in the air. He didn’t like it.  
“I have come to see my home, family and friends,” he said. Odin let out a cryptic little huff and raised a brow, and the difference in expression to what Loki had shown him was like a strike to the face.  
“Well, your family is glad to see you again, after all this time,” he replied without any visible emotion, lifting his gaze and looking at Thor with the slightest tilt of his head.  
The feeling of familiarity was absurd, or rather the way it surprised him. Even with his brother’s childhood goals of pleasing their parents and the repetitive scolding Thor had received from his father, Thor had never truly realised just how similar Loki and Odin were. Had always been.

“Thank you,” he said. “I am glad as well. I have missed you.”  
“Yet you never arrived sooner and were in much haste when you left,” Odin simply stated, without a questioning or challenging tone. Thor might not have known how to respond to hidden meanings behind words, but he knew when he was being tested.  
“I had no plans to stay for long, father,” he said, testing the waters, “But neither am I in a hurry this time. Jane knows where I have gone and why.”  
“Then why have you come?” Odin ask, laying the papers on the desk again, standing up a little straighter than before. Thor didn’t know how his father always did it. The confusing sense of power he seemed to discreetly radiate.  
“To seek out the peace and deep sleep which I have lost,” Thor answered. “I hoped to find it here.”  
“Peace is further away from here every passing day, my son. The court is simmering like a boiling broth, ready to burn everything in its wake at the slightest nudge. We are falling in disagreement and disarray,” Odin said, glancing at the tall, narrow windows on the far end of the room. His jaw was set in an almost bearishly cross way. “And the harm cannot be undone easily, not even with my authority.”  
Thor frowned. He could keep playing stupid, acting like Fandral would not have told him a thing, but something made him open his mouth before Odin had a chance to continue. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he hadn’t really told his father what he had thought on the day he left, either.  
It could be his only chance.  
“Loki, for all his grave imbalance, understood ruling as I know I never will,” Thor said, and from the very starting breath he knew that it was a mistake to mention his brother’s name at all. The change in his father was as sudden as a roaring geysir beneath frozen soil.

“I will not hear of that _kinless snake_ in these halls!” Odin roared, right hand rising into an angry fist, and just as Thor was about to take his words back his father’s voice dropped to a low, seething hiss.  
“You will not speak of Loki, the usurping dog, anymore. You will not speak of that greedy, ungrateful coward, who has done nothing but arrogate to himself the power which was never his! _I will not hear a word._ He knows nothing about ruling, and that he has already thrice proven.”  
“Thrice?” Thor asked slowly and carefully. He had always wondered where Loki learned to lash out in such a foul way of speak against others around him. Oddly enough, it didn’t seem like a mystery anymore - though how Thor himself had missed all of it until now remained unknown. Odin’s words carved something slowly out of his chest, as if they had been aimed at him, and not at Loki - wherever he was, Norns only knew.  
“Hah,” Odin barked out, “You who, I hear, say that he died in your own arms. That he of all people made the greatest imaginable sacrifice. And for the good of the kingdom.”  
“He did,” Thor insisted firmly. Apparently Loki hadn’t really died, and Thor didn’t yet know what to think about that, but he would not have his own words played as less truthful than they were.  
“He did not. And you know that,” Odin said, and it was final. He looked at Thor and the way his eye bored through him was a clear sign of that. Thor squared his shoulders and set his jaw. What had been left unsaid was at least as important as what had been exchanged, and now he only needed to find out what that was.  
“Father,” he said and gave the slightest nod.  
“Son,” Odin ground out in reply.

* * *

Birds were chirping so high upon the branches of the tall, wide pines, that they were impossible to see with plain eye. The smell of the sea was filtered down by the trees, but it was still there, behind the hill and the cliffs.  
"The horse did well, did he not? I would say he was of the blood of Svadilfari if I did not know better,” Suana asked, fiddling with the ends of the embroidered shash around her waist.  
"He did, yes! I should thank the grooms for their work, don't you think. The better collar was finally fixed last week,” Ainaz replied.  
The slowly decaying needles, leaves and pieces of wood softened the sound of flat-soled boots against the cobblestone-paved boulevard. The summer sun made the faraway steppes and woodlands glow and disappear into the bright distance. Suana smiled and turned to Ainaz once more.  
"If he will not be taken to the studbook, I will want to ask what in all the nine realms is going through the heads of the working group in charge of the inspections."  
"As will I."

A pair of large red aurochs cows pulled a wagon on the road beneath the grey stone bridge they stood on, and someone rode a small skewbald horse beside it. The market outpost around Noatun's sanctuaries and plains let life flow through it like a pulsing vein, filled and emptied with life time after time as old traveller homes welcomed their guests for the summer. Ainaz fixed the blue shawl around her shoulders and her dark, curly hair.  
"Is that new dress of yours already done by the seamstress?" She asked Suana. The belting would soon do little to hide her friend’s growing state.  
"No, I'm afraid that she is still working on it. Though I understand their business, with the news of this year's tax renovations everyone has to think anew.”  
"Of course. I loved the fabric and the embroidery-girl you found. And it looked like it would be comfortable to wear outside as well,” Ainaz brushed the politics off.  
"Yes, I am glad to have booked her before anyone else! Her work is exquisite, and would fit visiting the city as well," Suana smiled. A priest with his red face paint walked past them, nodding his head. Ainaz nodded gracefully and Suana bowed her whole body slightly. He went his way, presumably towards the temple on the other end of the great street. 

The low, arched _ger_ houses around the great hall were built centuries ago when the trade had centered around the then new princessly dwelling and reinforced afterwards, but they still looked like they could be packed and loaded onto a cart in a rather short time.  
"Will you be leaving for Austeyar soon? I would hate to see you go again," Suana sighed. Her honey-brown cheeks reddened slightly when Ainaz laughed.  
“You take such good care of me, sister. Tell me, has Oleg also been the target of such worry?”  
“Stop it! You know I have a husband.”  
“I do,” Ainaz said and sighed. "It'll be so dreary again when the autumn comes, so I hope to stay here as long as I can. Perhaps in the wintertime... Though with the unrest in the High Kingdom it may be that I will have to leave soon and stay away for longer," she said. "We shall see when the time comes."

A young man with a dirty face ran towards the two women who straightened immediately to lean slightly away from him.  
“Stable-boy. What news do you bear?”  
“A message, my lady, from your lord. It arrived a moment ago, but was written a few days ago.”  
“I guess we shall see it now,” Ainaz whispered to her friend, and thanked the boy out loud for the letter.  
“That parsimonious drunkard.” 

* * *

Odin’s hall had been lifted higher and higher and been built ever grander with years, just as had happened to the towers and courtyards around it. The throne room where he had been crowned had already been built on top of those his father had used to rule from. There were secret passageways and forgotten rooms in all age-old buildings. Count the ages further and expand those houses and halls into a fortress, then into a palace, and the amount of halls and arches becomes so great that it far outweighs the old rooms of stone laid upon stone. The Royal Palace was a capital inside the capital, a beating heart of its own. Faraway wheat fields and mountains were hardly visible from the great windows and balconies. Such an enormous recurring construction site was of course only a good thing, for it reflected the growth of the culture around it and improved the overall architectural style of the kingdom, provided work and made the palace more aesthetically pleasing as ages went by. 

It was also a very good thing if you needed a place for secrets, for no one ever really spent their time on the old floors. Which was exactly why Thor, Volstagg, Sif and Fandral met each other when the night fell, far below the public orchards and sitting rooms, in a cool and silent empty hallway of carved and stacked stone. Old stories of heroes and monsters lined the walls. All four of Asgard’s mightiest warriors had notably dressed down to avoid any extra attention upon themselves. Volstagg and Sif carried lights with them, so the otherwise rather dark and dreary setting was painted in a soft, golden glow. Thor and Fandral had arranged the old benches from the walls closer together to form a circle, and there they were. Old friends. The only thing that broke the illusion of a campfire was the cool, steady light that didn’t flicker.

“Odin says that the court is falling into chaos,” Thor half-asked, “Can you tell me anything about this?”  
"Well… The Council of the Realm has been constituted again," Fandral said, “So there have been some who are forming… parties and opinions about certain councilmen and practices.” He shrugged and took of the heavy cloak he still wore. Sif sighed through her nose and closed her eyes while rubbing her temples: “That does not mean ‘tis a chaos, Fandral. Mainly a very new situation.”  
"Truly? I thought that my father thinks it old-fashioned," Thor asked and frowned. When he had still been a child, not that he had understood it then, his father had been working towards reinforcing the power of the king. The war, everyone had been told, was a clear sign of the state needing a path that was clearer, and more firmly controlled. Thor had never even seen for himself what the Council of the Realm was all about.  
“Do the Small Councils not perform up to their usual standards?” he asked. Fandral only cleared his throat uncomfortably under his gaze.  
"What they mean to say," Volstagg smiled tightly, "Is that the Council of the Realm was reinstituted already well over a year ago. And the appointed councilmen are all well-liked, hard-working masters of their own fields of expertise."  
“What?” Thor blurted out. It was an unexpected. He was so surprised that he felt the air getting stuck in his throat for a moment. The feeling must have shown on his features because Fandral rushed to pat Thor on the shoulder.  
"Everything works remarkably well, and the common people have received the council with joy," Sif said slowly and looked at Thor with a serious expression. "I would never tell this to him personally, wherever he may be, but... Loki's first hasty decision was not all that bad."  
"The decision which your father now tries to pull back with a less remarkable success,” Fandral added. Thor had to get on his feet and pace around for a few steps before he could gather his thoughts. (It was a new habit, he noted, and one which he hadn’t really known he had developed. Jane would have noticed, most likely. He would have to ask her some day.)

“You say,” he started slowly, “That the first thing that Loki, my scheming and traitorous _fool of a brother_ , did - after he went through the trouble of _dying_ again and bidding me farewell - was to… to reform the entire state?” Thor asked, “And to establish the very thing that would keep him from ruling Asgard however he likes. Give up his power over the Small Councils?” He couldn’t say if he was shocked or amused, or toeing the line between the two, for the news was nothing he had expected. He couldn’t understand a thing. Then again, Loki’s mind had never really been one for him to read.  
“Well, it wasn’t merely sunshine and charity. There was also all this… witch hunt -” Volstagg said with a half-hearted chuckle (“On which I was sent,” said Sif) “- and a lot of replaced serving staff, not to mention some of those very paranoid-sounding speeches for the public and the noblemen. Fandral, was he really going on about the dangers of poorly prepared guard troops that one time…?”  
“But the Council of the Realm is running its work, reforming laws and taking care of the state’s offices?” Thor asked, and Volstagg nodded more soberly. Fandral crossed his arms.  
“Verily. Lord Forseti was appointed in charge of the court of justice, and he and Tyr, leading the einherjar and the new War Office, share the chairman’s seat. Freyr leads the foreign relations with Alfheim and Vanaheim, and that loud-mouthed Bragi does… whatever he does… Taxes are collected by the -”  
“And my father cannot tear it down again?” Thor double-checked. There was a short pause during which everyone looked at each other until Sif shrugged. “Aye, he cannot,” Volstagg assured.

For a moment no one said a thing, and the hallway around them was silent and dim. But the silence was not an empty one - instead it was full, packed tight with wicked hidden joy and clever words no one said. Despite the silence the words _were there_ because they had been left there in letters so bold that they shook the very core of the kingdom. Thor was almost certain that he could hear the sly chuckle. 

_”Should that dead-end not do some good for the old man? I would say it was about time he had something else to think about than meddling in our lives.”_

Fandral was the first one to break into a smile, but Thor couldn’t hold back his own laugh for long. Volstagg’s was shorter and louder than his, but even Sif couldn’t stay unmoved by the irony.  
“I think I must be dreaming this… At least this explains why my father was behaving like a bear stung by a bee.”  
“Well, I think that Loki knew exactly what he was doing. And would happen once Odin resumed the throne. He has always been nice like that, has he not?”  
“Has always been a little too clever for his own good, at least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, no Loki and his new friends this time - instead we visited Asgard and Vanaheim. O you remember what the Lawman did a few chapters ago? Asked for Disa the serving-maid to send a word to his wife.  
> It's all laid out now. We are hanging on the edges of the nine realms!
> 
> Odin was the thing keeping me from writing this chapter, but he also ended up being the force that moved it forward. Aannnd two new characters were introduced, Ainaz is the wife of the lawman, and we will be seeing more of her in the future.  
> Also, the name for the Council of the Realm was taken from the historical Swedish, Danish and Norwegian institutions of the same name (Riksrådet) and function (politics, helping the king with organising things in different fields such as economy, warfare and resources).
> 
> Thank you for the kudos and commenting! I love reading your thoughts, and if you see a typo or a weird sentence you don't get, let me know.


	16. Thank You, All of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes unanswered questions and unwanted answers can be taxing. Eating well after a hard day of work is still a good thing.

Despite the promises of worsening weather, sun was still shining over the cool, clear waters and forested islands. It was bright and hot and sweaty, and Helga and frouva Maire had been giving out generous amounts of thick plantain salve for everyone’s faces to prevent sunburns while working outdoors. It stung, but Sven was told that it was only because his skin had already taken some damage and was peeling off of his face and the back of his neck.  
He noticed it on his own a while later, as well. The thin strips of filmy skin were easy but uncomfortable to peel off, and with them itchy spots of red were uncovered. Luckily the shirt which he had got from Ukko and Rauni had sleeves that reached almost to his wrists when he rolled them down.  
Old Einar stepped halfway in through the door on a few occasions, checking on their work and humming thoughtfully as he left again. Once he had said that it seemed like thunder again, though with such bright blue skies Sven thought it a somewhat odd thing to say.

The pale narrow logs that formed the cabin were soon to grey out in the sunshine of the summer and the harsh weather come winter. Last rows of the inner ceiling planks were finally nailed in, and after the two working weeks of insulation and some finishing touches (and digging up ugly tree stumps around the building by hand, with only the help of a few iron rods and shovels) Cattle island’s new common hall was finished. It stood unpainted, basking in the sunlight on top of the grassy hill that raised its head from between the trees. Quietly and modestly it waited for future use and looked over a few rocks and trees, out to the sea.

Sven and Eero sat next to each other on a big rock some feet further from the house, next to the wide squeaking gate. A large oak towered over the rock and shaded their faces somewhat. Arvi, Helga and Hilmar had gone with Einar to the big house to get a… to do… something that they didn’t apparently need help for. Sven didn’t really know what people did when a house was finished, he had never done something like that before, but he was told to wait by the common hall and keep Eero company.  
It might have had something to do with him ripping his palms open with the shovels and nearly fainting and throwing up earlier that day, as well. He had been feeling worse than he had ever felt, but was ushered to sit in the shadow with a cup of cool milk and told that he was most likely just suffering from the heat. Helga called it a sun-sting, and the buzzing inside his head did indeed feel like the beehive behind the house. Perhaps he should really get that hat.

“It’s alright,” Eero mumbled through a mouthful of dried rye bread, as he watched Sven examine the palms of his hands.  
“I used to get a lot of sores and bruises on my hands from working as well. When I was little, though, not anymore really,” the lanky blonde said. Sven let out a long sigh, wanting to hit the boy with something heavy, but decided against it. It wasn’t really Eero’s fault that he had worked his skin raw without noticing and that it now blistered, but he didn’t really enjoy being called out on it either.  
“And when exactly was that bygone era? Last week?” he asked the boy and let a light amused grin spread on his lips. Eero’s pale brows shot up and he laughed in surprise.  
“Excuse me, I’m not the one who needs to be taught everything,” he needled back.  
“Of course,” Sven had to (grudgingly) surrender and shake his head, because Eero was right. He didn’t really have an argument against him that wouldn’t have sounded petty or childish.

“Can you see that white line?” Eero asked and opened his right hand after he had finished the piece of bread he had been gnawing on. Even though he was younger his tanned palms were wide and angular, very different from Sven’s long and thin fingers, and there was a long scar running along the base of his thumb.  
“How did you manage to do that?” Sven asked.  
“I fell on a pile of tools when I was helping father and my brothers out. The axe would have sliced my face off if I hadn’t pushed my arms out,” Eero simply stated.  
“And these,” he turned his hands over and rolled the sleeves of his cornflower-blue shirt to show odd criss-crossing patterns on his forearms, “came from wood splinters. I don’t remember much about that, it was winter and I was wearing only a woolly shirt when I slipped. The sticks pierced through. They were dug out pretty quickly, though, and mother and the healing man said that I could have lost the use of my hands completely if they hadn’t. I guess I have a habit of sticking my hands into a mess they’re not supposed to be in.”  
“That sounds very… unpleasant,” Sven replied slowly. He didn’t really know what else to say. “Not that I know what it must have felt like.”  
“Me neither, really,” Eero shrugged, “I can’t remember. They’ve told that I was a bit caught up in my own head for the rest of that day.” Soft wind shook the tall grasses around the stone they sat on, and it was a welcome feeling in the heat. For a while the two of them just sat in silence.

“Where did you come from though… that is _so strange_. You really can’t remember a thing?” Eero asked. He turned his head to look at Sven with a little frown. “People don’t just appear out of nowhere, unless from the forest’s deep or as changelings.”  
Sven could feel a small crease forming in between his own eyebrows as he sat up a little straighter, sunshine warming his knees and lower legs uncomfortably through the black fabric of his trousers. He didn’t know what Eero meant with that.  
“I really can’t,” he affirmed. “Do you think that I would fit either of those?”  
“Sure. You’re tall and thin and strange. You could have been born to an elf, or a troll or huldra or something,” Eero said as easily as one might point out the blue colour of the sky above them. Sven couldn’t hold his surprised laugh very well, but he tried.  
“A troll? That really doesn’t sound like a compliment,” he warned.  
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never met one. Maybe you’re a really pretty troll-child,” Eero shrugged laughing. “Or a really ugly son of a _huldrekarl_ from the elven world,” the boy grinned. Sven shoved him and let out an amused huff of air.  
“So you think that I am an ugly elf?” he asked.  
“Nah, not really. I reckon you would have done something more magical about those blisters already, and I don’t see iron hurting you more than it does anyone else,” the younger man snorted.  
“You people and your magic,” Sven laughed and shoved him with his elbow, which led into Eero poking him forcefully in between his ribs and him almost losing his balance and falling off of the high rock. What a goose he was. A childish boy.

“But even if you were a changeling, I think that would be pretty exciting. Instead of a man who doesn’t know how to use a hammer you’d be of the woodland folk without a clue on how to use your väki.”  
“As in… magic?”  
“Yeah, that’s what it means.”  
“Mm. I think Ukko and Rauni mentioned something about it.”  
“You need to meet Pretty Wrongleg some day, he’s an old rune-man. Really scary and _väkevä_ , full of power they say, and not very pretty at all. But I think he would like you. Lives on Nightcliff, closer to Kingsyard.”

Eero was a bit lighter of heart than many others seemed to be, and he didn’t let the strange mixture of standoffish pity and reserved sympathy surface when he talked with Sven. He just… talked. Asked bold questions. And judging by the few weeks of knowing the boy, Sven did like him, and felt like he could understand him easier than some of the other people.  
“You’re not an entirely useless thing,” Sven told the boy and patted his shoulder once.  
“Thanks,” Eero laughed. “You’re learning to be of use too.”

“Are they returning already?”  
“I think so. Ah, hey, that’s why they told you to stay here - they’re carrying in the old benches we saved from the burnt-down hall.”  
“Then it must have been for the best that I wasn’t accompanying them.”  
“Probably... Do you want to go through the letters of the _fuþark_ again? I think I could be a better teacher than Arvi.”  
“Write that down and perhaps I’ll believe you.”

Eero was easier to read than Helga, Arvi or Ukko, and less skilled in concealing his thoughts and feelings. _Easier to lead towards talking about something specific._ (Sven hadn’t really thought of it like that before.)

* * *

To your Highness, the Allfather, we the people of Austeyar _herad_ send this summer’s tax listings from all fourthings. All houses have agreed to your royal terms and promise to fill the demands by come autumn. Included in this letter are, by popular vote of the tenants, some worries and enquiries from the people. Also, so some other additional legal matters.  


...

These people have, over the last few year-hundreds of my charge, shown resilience that is rare and astonishing. However biased I may have grown in spending time with them, I swear on my home and hearth that their sacrifices have been important to the wellbeing of the whole kingdom. The Eastern isles have unbrokenly provided the Crown with resilient and dedicated foot soldiers, masons, textile materials, woodwork and taxed foodstuffs. Nonetheless the resources of our herad are sparse. Thus, the recent news have made many a farmer and borgare upset.

They find that this great a rise in demands is unjust, and while everyone has given their word to fill the need of the kingdom, many are afraid that they may not have enough left to survive the cold winter.  
With the unfortunate history still living strong in the memory of the people, all of our elected fourthingsmen, and many tenants separately, have voiced their worries to me. Further down is a collective list of the loudest complaints that have reached my ears, signed by those who wish to plead to our King.  
I beg that your Excellency should think upon the matter, and send a reply if convenient, so that it could be read when the taxes are collected at summer’s end. I should think that a word from our King, your Highness, can lay their worries to rest.

...

By birth, after delayed noting and due to earlier missing records and relations, this year's count of population has increased by three. Detailed records of each person provided separately after this list.

Tuure Olavsson of Kingsyard, borgare by rank. A young boy-child born two years ago, third child of Olav Shoemaker and Aune Burnfield of Stonehill house, North fourthing.  
Hilda Hyvärisdottir of Orrastadir, tenant farmer by rank. Newborn girl, first child to Hyväri and Snilla of Orrastadir croft, East fourthing. Rather sickly, expected not to survive over come autumn and winter.  
Sven of Fairholm, bondman by rank. A man aged ten hundred, a late marketchild of last years of hunger. Working for Ukko and Rauni of Fairholm house, South fourthing. In good physical condition for drafting as a part of the hundred.

...

One of the royal oaks has begun showing signs of rotting at the root. With the permission of your Highness we would have it cut down before further damage to prevent additional costs from the loss of the tree or possible accidents around it. A new oak will be planted and the wood shipped to mainland before the pre-winter fog rises.

...

If your Honour should not send an answer, due to other, more pressing matters or the new order of the state, it would be greatly cherished and thanked if your Royal Highness had this letter sent forward for the Council of the Realm to reply.

 _\- Faravid Skírnason of Kingsyard, the fourth duke of the Eastern lands, the lawman of Austeyar islands, serving partially under Great Prince Njörðr of Vanaheim_

* * *

Even the breakfasts of Maire’s house, which he had at first thought somewhat small, were now feeling like more than enough. After the house had been finished, however, the evening table was set and with more food than Sven could ever remember seeing.

They were all gathered in the small and warm dining hall, even if the table that had at first seemed long was a bit cramped for nine people in total. Not too much, but the elbow room was not gracious either. Everyone had washed and shaved their faces, and Helga was actually wearing a skirt she had conjured from somewhere. Arvi had combed his hair away from his eyes and Sven had plaited his again (with some unneeded critique and not-asked-for help from Helga).

“Mm… I want to say thank you, to all of you - Arvi and Helga and Hilmar, and _Sven_ and Elmer,” Einar started slowly as he stood up. The master of the house had dressed himself up with a thick black vest for the dinner. His thick, white beard shook good-naturedly with his words, but the gaze of his narrowed eyes and the tone with which he said Sven’s name were just as piercing as before.  
Sven had to turn his head slightly to steal a glance towards the stone-faced ashen blonde man at the other end of the table. It had to be Elmer, sitting next to Eero. He had been helping with the hall during some of the first few days, hadn’t he? Straight nose and wide shoulders, and an even more passive and unamused general expression than Arvi’s.  
Was _that_ one of Eero’s brothers?

“I am thanking you all, both for the help in completing the common hall and for all the other errands you’ve done for the house. And for bearing with my nearly unbearable youngest son,” Einar added, with a small change in the wrinkles around his eyes, which Sven could only read as a smile towards the two who _definitely were brothers_. Eero laughed and Elmer swatted him gently on the shoulder.  
“Come on, you fluffy little kid,” he snorted to the younger brother.  
The feeling was a ridiculous one, but for some reason Sven found himself unsettled by Elmer. Watching him made a strange twist form in Sven’s guts. Or perhaps he just felt a bit ( _dwarfed, threatened, ridiculed for even existing_ ) tense for sharing a room with someone so stern and expressionless. That’s what it was. Not the width of the man’s shoulders and hands or Eero’s constant, happy chatter with him. Not the comparison that Eero had jokingly thrown around the last few weeks ago - that he could be mistaken for a brother of his, if he only didn’t look the way he did.  
“And I am thanking you like this, because I have not been blessed with the gift of cooking my wife and our maid share,” Einar slowly added, cutting Sven’s thoughts off. The old man’s ragged voice gained a warmer tone when he spoke of her wife. Maire rolled her eyes, nodded to everyone and told them to eat their fill.  
“Are you alright?” Arvi grunted quietly to him. Sven lifted his eyes to look at him, and because he didn’t know how to quickly explain the truth of his thoughts, he didn’t.  
“Of course. Just tired. Or more exhausted, I think,” he smiled. Surely the feeling would pass.

The soft, dark bread was warm and sweet, from that morning's dough and that day’s bake, and butter melted on it nearly on the instant they touched. A large serving plate of black iron was filled with small headless fish which were still hot and had all been fried fresh - not taken in from the barrels of dried or salted herring. They were covered in salt, warm cream and herbs from the garden. Arvi piled seven of them on his own plate, in addition to the bread and some cooked vegetables, ignoring everyone else’s disbelieving protests.  
There was cheese and jam and cooked carrots and peas, and even some homemade currant berry wine to fill the odd cups and glasses everyone had. It was sweet, even if slightly watered down, and now that Sven didn’t have to drink it all on an empty stomach he didn’t fear that he would start blurting out complete nonsense.

He really had nothing to worry about, since as the evening turned to night Arvi started singing very loudly. So did the rest of them, when he got to a very exciting - at least to Arvi himself, it seemed - song about a white hare and huntsman, which had a few lines of response in between every verse. Every time he got to the gibberish part of the chorus he shook Sven rather violently with an arm around his shoulders. The ending of the story - where the daughter of the house took the hare-bones to the woods so the hare could run again - were shouted almost directly into his ear.  
Even so, it didn’t really feel all that unpleasant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, finally! Here I tried to cover some question that might have needed clarification. But if you didn't get everything, don't worry, it'll come in time!
> 
> Also, I love promoting folk music, so go and listen to this nice group performance of an Estonian tune called [Valgõ Jänes (the White Hare)](https://youtu.be/JZE_mnY6P8k). A band called Zetod also has a nice folk rock version on spotify.
> 
> Faravid the Lawman is probably the sort of person who has a really high working morale and loves making sure that evrrything works like it should - a born and bred bureaucrat. Sucks to be anyone else having to read any of his papers though. Herad is another term for a smaller governed area inside the kingdom, so Austeyar herad is synonymous to the hundred of the islands we already covered.
> 
> And finally, soon we'll get back to the homestead.


	17. It's a Warning Signal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's nice to get you home, but you had better get a hold of that sharp tongue of yours.  
> Also, what's that? Do you actually have something in between your skin and bones?

Sea water waved around the isles and the wind was cool, but the shores were still, like the surface of a mirror. Ukko kept humming a slow tune to himself, pulling the oars, and listened to the hushed whispers of young trees that grew on faraway banks. They were already green, and the clovers and dandelions were blooming at their roots. The wind spoke of rising storm, though the darkest clouds were still brewing somewhere behind the edges of the sea. They hid all pale morning stars from view. 

The boat groaned when it hit the bottom of the shore, and the pale young man waiting for Ukko was already standing ankle-deep in the water. Sven lifted his chin in a small greeting. He smiled and Ukko smiled back.  
“This time I can get on the boat on my own, when you’re taking me home,” Sven said, and Ukko was pleased to hear that he had gained some humour. His eyes had gained some new life behind them.  
“I’m glad to hear that. I would likely sprain my back if I tried to drag you up,” Ukko nodded with a small laugh in return when the young man climbed on the boat and kicked them further away from the rocks.  
“I would love to help with the rowing, but I…” Sven opened his bandaged palms, “We dug up tree roots yesterday and the day before, and I never noticed how my skin was rubbed raw. Not before we had it finished.”  
“You scared me for a moment there,” Ukko smiled and sighed in relief.  
“The skin will grow back, thicker than before, don’t you worry. Let’s see the nets on our way,” he said and looked at Sven, pulling on the oars.  
“Back ashore you can help Rauni with the goats and I’ll start with salting the fish, so you don’t have to bother the blisters.”

The floating markers tied at the upper edge of the net were not that easy to spot in a stormy weather. Luckily it was still rather serene and Ukko spotted them easily. He lifted the oars into the boat, and gave Sven the end of the net when he started to drag up the rest.  
“Why are the nets there?” Sven asked after a while of silence and sunlight, question as slow as the ripples around the boat. There were a few big green perch tangled up in the net that were still alive. Before Ukko could instruct Sven with whacking the fish dead, the man had already bent and broken their necks.  
Ukko suspected that the actual choice of location wasn’t really what Sven wanted to know, and let out a breathy humming sound before answering.  
“We - us on Fairholm, then folk on Cattle island and Hestey which is behind it - can keep all the small fish we get from here. Everyone has a day for checking them. Big ones are usually sold away to Egil, he is the official fishmonger at Kingsyard. And Egil then sells them to the big city or to the lawman,” he explained, plucking the slippery fish out of the net’s eyes and tossing them on the bottom of the boat. Sven’s bony hands had stilled for a moment and he looked up at Ukko with a confused frown.  
“Why can’t you keep them yourselves?” the younger man asked, looking at the small silver herring that twitched near his feet before continuing with the fish, and Ukko thought he sounded almost slighted when he asked, “Why would it be restricted like that?”  
“I think it is only because Egil’s family has been rich and influential for long. He’s a borgare, a merchant, in a line of who knows how many generations,” Ukko answered with a shrug. “Besides, after the war the rule around here was well tightened. The crown wants to know where their food comes from,” he added and scratched his greyed beard. It was how things worked, and nothing to get confused about - still the lad seemed surprisingly upset about the fish trade. 

“What war are you referring to?” Sven asked after a little while of silence. Ukko lifted his brows. It was surprising to keep hearing so many new blanks from the young man when he seemed so… well-functioning.  
“The Years of hunger, a long time ago. It must have been some time before you were born,” he told Sven.  
“Who were at war?” the lad asked.  
“The Rik and the… well, I don’t know how they call themselves, but we’ve called them _thursar_ here. In the Rik they prefer to call them giants, for some reason,” Ukko explained. He looked out onto the sea for a moment. The skies had been much blacker, back then. Summers even shorter than they tended to be nowadays.  
“Giants?” Sven asked quickly, his expression turning strange. Ukko nodded, curious about the sudden alarm in his voice. Sven’s eyebrows were pulled up into a tight knot and his mouth parted like he was going to say something more, lichen-green eyes searching frantically for something in the distance. He stopped working with the net, another fish was flapping its body against the bottom of the boat. Ukko looked at him, frowning a little.  
“You have heard the name?” he asked, mostly to find out that the sonny boy was indeed alright.  
He looked like he’d seen a ghost, but sobered up a little again when he started working out an answer.

“I don’t… I… I’m not sure, it just. Sounds very unpleasant,” Sven said, not very loudly or clearly, but he looked at Ukko again, “I think that I would describe it as a… very blunt term.”  
“And I guess that you must never have been to the Rik, for the men there are much less polite about that,” Ukko smiled. The roughness of the wet net and the small slippery herrings ran through his hands towards the bottom of the boat. Sven half shrugged.  
“They lost the war, though, even though they were the first to attack. And a good thing that is. I wouldn’t want their homeland’s freezing winds on our shore,” Ukko added as an afterthought. Sven was looking at him curiously, much like he had before when Ukko had talked about the goats or the way the old mare was behaving now that she was about to foal. Sven clearly wanted to know things, one would have to be blind not to see that. But now there was something subtle in the narrow features that twisted them a bit further.  
“You were in that war, were you not?” Sven asked suddenly.  
“I was,” Ukko nodded. “Already then I was older than you must be now. I wouldn’t be drafted anymore, even if there was a need.”  
“Then you’ve met the… thursar. The giants.”  
“A few, yes. And lucky I was to still be here to talk about them.”  
“What were they like?” Sven asked, lowering his voice a little. He was being careful, wording his thoughts softly not to upset him, and Ukko was pleased by that - even if he was a little surprised as well. He let out a little sigh, scratching his beard again.  
“They are a different people entirely, so it’s a little difficult to describe them, when you’ve never seen one. But they are big people, every man at least twice as tall as one in our own ranks. I’ve never seen what their women look like, but I doubt they’re that different. And blue they were, from head to toe, like the summer sky. Storming into battle with as much skin showing as we had armour, war cries louder and deeper than our horns.”  
“Blue,” Sven muttered, glancing up at the sky, sounding slightly disgusted.  
“Like death itself. And drops of their blood never stained our hands red either. But their eyes were. Red, I mean, blazing like torches,” Ukko nodded, starting to let the weights of the net back out into the water. Sven reached out to help him and soon only the floating markers were left to mark the place again.  
“Were you scared? How did they fight?” Sven asked.  
“Of course I was, but there was no other choice than to stay and fight,” Ukko said, and he took a deep breath to keep the slowly creeping tension out of his voice. No one really talked about things like war or its aftermath on the isles. Not like the men of the Rik boasted with their battles and spoils.  
“The thursar rarely needed actual weapons. They mold ice and the forces of nature to their will like the wind that controls these waves. They would kill a man on sight. But so would we,” he told Sven.  
“You’ve… killed them?” the man asked, and even if his pale seemed even whiter for a moment, he still looked curious.  
“It was war.”  
“How many? How did you -”  
“And killing other people is a thing no one should be proud of.”  
“Other people… But if they were so dangerous, why would -”

Ukko stopped rowing and pulled the oars up for a moment.

“You can stop there, because I don’t like where you’re going,” he cut the young man off and laced his fingers together. Sven looked like he didn’t appreciate it. He pursed his lips tightly for a breath.  
“What did I say?” he asked then, tilting his head like an angry crow would. And by the heaven’s ever-glowing candles, the tone the younger man used was truly a sharp and ugly one. Ukko hadn’t heard it before.  
“Dead should never be defamed, Sven. No matter who they are,” he said, “So I don’t like the way you’re asking about these things.”  
“If they were hardly even people -”  
“ _Hold your tongue!_ ” Ukko barked, feeling a rare spark of anger. The boat groaned when he leaned forward and a gust of wind had the waters splashing against its sides. He pushed a hand firmly against Sven’s slim chest - it was heaving slightly - to keep him still and silent. He almost wanted to grab the boy’s shirt and shake him to see if it would get some sense into his head. He stayed his hand all the same.

“As long as it’s a war, it is fought between people. And if you kill a man of another people, you’ve killed another person,” Ukko said, letting more of the displease he felt seep into his expression. Polite he had called Sven, mere moments ago. For some reason it didn’t make Ukko laugh at the irony. The hot-headedness was worrying him.  
“Can I trust you with a knife when we get home?” he asked pointedly, lifting an eyebrow. Some form of shame flickered across Sven’s face, and it was good to see.  
“Who’s had you so full of hate all of a sudden?” Ukko asked slowly, leaning back and letting go of Sven. Loud opinions might have been an improvement to the still surface of confusion that surrounded the lad, but ugly storms like this were not good either. Ukko didn’t know exactly what had happened on Kingsyard for Sven to challenge Heatherfield’s Valto in a fight, but he knew that he would have to ask about it some time soon.  
“I am not… full of hate,” Sven managed with little sneering, dropping his eyes to the pile of fish between them. Ukko let out a breath that he had hardly noticed holding.  
“I hope not. Many fear thursar, as they should, but they’ve already paid for the past. The Rik has waged war on all fronts,” Ukko said, hoping to reassure Sven that he wasn’t talking just to stay warm.  
“Yes, of course. I got a bit distracted,” which was probably Sven’s way of apologising for his rash words. It would have to be enough for now. Ukko nodded slowly, letting the lad know that it would be accepted this time.

Soon the oars were back in the water, letting the ripples reflect the boat’s sides and the spotted water birds flying above them. Sven’s shoulders were tense and he looked into the cool waves rather than at Ukko. His features no longer showed an emotion. Ukko decided to use a bit lighter tone of voice when he spoke up again.  
“They’re an older race than we are, of that I’m sure,” he said referring to the thursar again, and Sven closed his eyes with a little sigh. So the son _had wanted to_ swim away from the trouble. Ukko was feeling more assured that it was best not to let the topic slide.  
“There are a few rather interesting ...sites here, on the islands, that must be older than the kingdom and its great towers. An old song calls one of them the gate to the Underworld,” he told. The tall boulders on Nightcliff had surely once been sharp and spattered with carvings and drawings, but they were worn and covered in moss and lichen by years of standing in the wind and weather.  
“They’re made of stones so great that no man or woman can have raised them on their own. And there are carvings on the cliffs on several islands that would require year-hundreds to complete without the forces of nature at your hand,” he told Sven. 

Apparently old shrines were a better turn of topic than bloodshed, when he looked at Ukko again. Some of the boyish curiosity was back even if he still looked at him sideways like a nervous horse.  
“We could go and see them some day,” Ukko offered. Sven seemed a little surprised. Even if no other answer ever came than a small shrug, Ukko was satisfied enough.

* * *

Why had he said something so scornful and thoughtless out loud? His stomach was twisting itself into a tighter and tighter knot the closer they got to Fairholm, and he didn’t know where the thoughts had come from. They had come uninvited and flooded his head, something gripping his emotions so tightly in the hold of disgust and unease that the curiosity he had first felt was mangled by it all.  
He felt stupid again, for making Ukko so disappointed in him. He felt wrong, and he felt bad, and he felt uncomfortable in his own skin. _He was sorry._ The need to say something crawled through his arms in such a lively way that he half expected to see something digging its way forward beneath a thin layer of his skin. He didn’t want to feel so, and he had never wanted to do wrong, he had just… said what he had thought.

“Help me get the boat up,” Ukko asked again when they were ashore, and he did.  
“Let’s get these fish into those big buckets over there so we can get them to the shed”, Ukko said, and he nodded, jogging to fetch them. He was on the verge of saying something when he piled herring and perch and other fish into the vessels, but couldn’t form a sentence.  
“Can you carry those up?” Ukko asked to be sure, and he immediately said, “Of course,” despite the uncomfortable strain in his palms through the bandages. Surely he deserved it by now for being such a fool. The old man didn’t sound angry, but he was still displeased and it was blaringly obvious.  
Sven didn’t find it hard to imagine Eero falling silent if he would have been there to hear him, confused and uncomfortable. Helga asking him what on earth he was talking about and glaring furiously at him with an angry hiss. Arvi shutting his mouth and scoffing with a sneer. Calling him arrogant or thick-headed or something like that.

* * *

The afternoon sun was still shining brightly, hitting everything it met directly from where it hung slightly lower than during midday. A few stray clouds circled around the edges of the horizon, calling out for their friends to start their stormy gathering as soon as they could.

After they reached the yard and Ukko had greeted his wife, Sven had had his hands full of work. Rauni had shoved him into a pen full of small and very loud goats. He had nearly forgotten the amount of sound they were able to make, and with the bells tied around their necks it was nearly overwhelming at first.  
Sven was tasked with catching the animals and holding onto the wooden collars of the does while Rauni milked them, one by one. While she sieved the milk into a bigger pail, he walked the does out of the holding pen to resume their grazing. The white and grey animals wandered freely around the little barn building that housed the side of the goats’ shelter and the stable half for the horse, allowed to go as they pleased. They usually returned around mid-afternoon for the milking to get their oats.

“Be still now, you silly,” Rauni told off the sixth animal when she tried to kick her and nearly overturned the small milking bucket. Sven scratched the coarse hair behind the goat’s ears gently and tried to hush her a little to get her to calm down. She didn’t seem appreciative of his efforts, and perhaps it was better to stop before he aggravated more souls on the island.  
“I am a half-witted moron,” he breathed out. The goat bleated loudly and looked at him, and a slightly downhearted smile forced its way on his lips. It was nice to hear that he managed to say something others could agree with.  
“Now why would you say that?” Rauni asked when she got up from next to the goat. “I thought that you were a rather clever man,” she said and looked at him sharply.  
“I thought so too. I hardly think Ukko agrees anymore,” he muttered, leading the goat away and letting her out of the collar. After she jumped away from him he turned back to catch the last one.  
“Mm… Saying a stupid thing every now and then doesn’t make you a moron. It makes you normal,” Rauni said, closing the gate to keep him and the doe inside until she was collared. He walked her back to the fencing and Rauni crouched next to the goat with the bucket.  
“Though I’d like to know what makes you think you upset him,” Rauni said, in that way that was a question without any actual asking. Sven didn’t want to answer, but he didn’t know how to avoid it either.  
“I was… rather insensitive. When I asked him about the war,” he admitted slowly, afraid of a reaction. But Rauni didn’t look up at him, and the last doe seemed more likely to fall asleep in his hold than butt him with her horns. “About the killing,” Sven added.  
“Then you ought to apologise to him,” Rauni said. “Or take up butchering, if you’re so keen on seeing blood. I can tell you, the smell is not a very pleasant one and the stains are hard to get off,” she shrugged and took him by surprise. How could she have known? 

Rauni looked up at him and almost smiled.  
“Don’t look so shocked, you’re not the first young man on these islands to say that they’d hope to wage war somewhere. I’d just hoped that you wouldn’t be one of those boys who go around the streets yelling bloody murder and waving their knives around during weddings,” she said calmly, “and do let the poor thing go already, she’s falling asleep against your leg.”

Sven didn’t have an answer so he said nothing. The grey doe walked off lazily when he let her out of the collar. He went after her, going to the well to get up some cold water for the milk to stay cool while being worked into cheese. The jingling of the goat bells soon mixed with the chirping of the birds in a small nearby tree. He stood by and watched as Rauni worked.  
“Do you think that they might be talking to each other? The birds,” he asked Rauni when she started mixing a pale liquid into the milk. Rennet, she had said, from the belly of a calf. Disgusting but very important if you wanted to make cheese.  
“Oh, I know they are,” Rauni smiled, “Do you hear that high and sharp tchk-tchk-tchk they all happily twitter?” she asked him in return. Sven listened for a moment, and there was clearly a repetitive chattering sound.  
“I do,” he said.  
“It’s a warning signal. The first bird that spotted us coming too close started sounding the alarm and after him everyone who hears starts to repeat it. ‘Danger, danger, stay on alert’. Message is delivered quickly to all who can hear,” she explained, stirring the milk. He looked back up at the birds and grimaced slightly.  
“I suppose that it isn’t so beautiful, then.”  
“But it is,” Rauni said and pointed the wooden stirring spoon at him, “And that’s what makes it so clever.”  
“What do you mean?” Sven asked, frowning a little.  
“When all we hear are sing-song chirps and tweets, we can’t be sure of their plans. Just by listening to their singing you would never know if the third little robin just said ‘I will fly away now’. Perhaps he didn’t, he could have also said ‘we should attack them’. He’s safe that way, from the rest of us, when we can’t hear the meaning behind the pretty sound he makes,” Rauni said with a smile, going back to stirring the milk to eventually separate whey and cheese from the thickening mix. “And,” she added, “that way the little robin will not insult the people around him.”  
Sven laughed at that, nodding a little thanks to her and crossing his arms over his chest. He leaned back against the sun-warmed wall of the barn. Certainly Sven was still feeling the tingling unease beneath his skin, but Rauni was clearly better at reassuring him than he himself was.  
“And now we got the smile I was waiting for,” she jabbed at him.  
“I must try and apologise when we sit down for dinner,” Sven smiled back, “Thank you.”

“Now I can finally say that you look a little happier than when you first arrived here,” Rauni said when she picked up the pail and carried it to the barn. Sven followed with the water bucket when she dug out the cheese molds.  
“It looks like Maire fed you well in between all that building work. Now you actually have some meat over your tall, thin bones and some flesh in your cheeks.”  
“I - what?” he asked, surprised and feeling his ears heating up quickly. Flesh in his cheeks? Sven brought his hands up to his face and looked down at himself. Surely, he had eaten well and worked a lot, but… he was staring at his arms, trying to see a difference.  
“Don’t be like that, Sven, you looked skinny as a scarecrow when I last saw you properly!” Rauni said, clearly holding in even more laughter than she actually let out. “It was a compliment.”  
“‘You’ve gained weight?’ Is that any way to give a compliment to someone?” he asked, still forcing some outrage into his voice even though he could feel a smile stretching his lips.  
“If you look like a skeleton, it is,” Rauni laughed.  
“Now, come here and help me with this cheese,” she said and wiped her hands dry into the blue-and-white checkered apron she wore over her grey skirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time, no chapter! I'm so sorry, the newest fic idea and high school finals have really taken up a lot of my time recently. But I can say that it was only for the benefit of this story, because this chapter turned out very different than it was when I first sketched it out!.  
> Please, let me know what you think, I love reading every single comment, long or short!
> 
> Also, this is probably useless information, but I found **the cutest** [eight-minute silent documentary film](https://youtu.be/Xlj428s8gvU?t=102) about Finnish goat cheese from 1938 by Sakari Pälsi of "Folkloristic Film". I translated some of the info text from the beginning of the video here:  
>  _"The making of Tyrvää municipality’s famous goat cheeses was filmed at Marjasuo (Berry-bog) croft during oat harvest in the end of the summer. The success of the filming is largely thanks to “actress” Karoliina Kaunisto. Mistress Karoliina’s way with cheese is among the most beautiful practises we have seen._  
>  _The film shows the stages of the work: first comes milking, then sieving/filtering of the milk and the mixing of rennet into the still warm milk. What followed was the coagulated milk getting gathered into a cheese ball which was then squeezed into a wet mold. After that the squeezing and and turning of the cheese is continued, it is dipped into the extracted whey, squeezed again and then patted, until the ready and firm decorated delicacy is ready to cool off in cold water. The salting part shows the coarseness of the salt and the drying off part shows whisking away nosy flies._  
>  _The packaging of the cheese or the transport to be sold were sadly not captured on film. Even so, this film is likely satisfactory, particularly as learning material on the subject. At least the camera man now firmly trusts that he has learned the art of making goat cheese and can well pass it on."_
> 
> Now you all know how to make traditional Northern European goat cheese. You're welcome.


	18. I Have Not Seen Her in Over a Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stifling summer heat and troublesome decisions. What is the deal with all these vague family issues?

The great tree Yggdrasill is ever-growing, and if you knew where to look, you could see how it spanned the whole night sky with its white-dusted branches.  
It pushed stars apart as it aged, and the Nine Realms slowly drifted away from each other like flowers and fruit on a branch. But with distance grew also the strength of the wood, and of the pathways.  
When the cycle began, everything was tightly packed in a small bud of bright light and stilled time, waiting for a chance to bloom. The worlds grew and flowered and eventually reached their own places on the uppermost branches and the deepest roots of a tree that was, would be, and had always been.

There were places between worlds, budding places, and there were worlds that required a trip through another realm to reach.

The islands were such a place. Asgard could be reached by boat, but it was a strange and uncertain journey southwest. Sometimes it was safer to try and reach Vanaheim first and sail north-east, and get an easier access to the mainland from there. Not that anyone would often do that - it was easier to focus on familiar things and let pointless politics pass. The Bifröst was such a rare sight there that few thought it anything more than a sharper kind of rainbow, cutting across the horizon.  
The hazy headlands and cloudy islands were a place that could have been a part of any world, but really weren’t. They lay on the very edges of Asgard. The glistening glades sometimes overlappes other worlds as well. Not always, but on some mornings small creatures from Alfheim were seen playing in the hay fields and the forests that were still covered in mist. It must have been something in the earth, or perhaps a strange bend in the tree trunk of this existence.  
There was a calm in the air you could never find in Asgard. 

Faravid enjoyed peace the most in regards to his late mother’s home. Dear Ainaz, however - she had always hated the islands with every fibre of her soul. She was a socialite, he was a hermit, and he knew it well. She reminded him of that every time they met.

Faravid had had the tall clock in the dining room repaired as soon as the ice had left that last spring. The swirling time-silver was functioning properly inside its case again, so at least she would have one less thing to complain about. He had made sure that the ashen desk for her to see her letters and news from Vanaheim and the Rik was in good condition, and that the runes were unharmed. Disa had polished the wood and the golden parts well. She had even checked that it worked when Faravid had had more pressing matters to check.  
In all truth, Faravid missed Ainaz greatly, even though he knew that she hardly missed him as much.

“My herre,” Disa had said and knocked on the door, “The men are here to fix the stable doors.”  
“Thank you, Disa,” Faravid nodded and put down the books he had been reorganising for the fifth time in the last hour. The girl looked at him with a tense expression, but nodded and smiled.  
“Oh, and the shoemaker’s frouva will arrive soon to prepare the meal, just wanted to know if she could bring her children as well. Promised that there would be no trouble. Good children,” she explained. Faravid frowned a little. He had rarely seen the serving-girl so nervous, she had the will of a bear despite her small stature.  
“Of course,” he said, and saw her relieved sigh as she curtseyed. Odd. “You can help her watch over them. We will have to enlist willing men to take down the rotten oak as well, as soon as possible,” Faravid added and went back to the books.

Disa remained where she stood for a long breath. Faravid turned around again to look at her. There was no reason for the maid to stay there any longer, was there? He cleared his throat to get the girl’s attention.  
“I am sorry, my lord, I was just wondering if… How long will your wife be staying this time? When she arrives, that is. You always seem so stressed when she does and now, with the taxes and everything, tonight seems very… stressful,” Disa said carefully, but her eyes were steady and sharp. Faravid frowned a little. He couldn’t say where the question stemmed from.  
“I do hope that she will stay for a while,” he replied slowly, “I have not seen her in over a year.”  
“Of course, of course. I will go and tell frouva Aune that she can bring her sons,” Disa smiled and curtseyed again. She was behaving very oddly, poor girl, and he couldn’t help but wonder if all was as it should have been.  
“Do that. Thank you,” Faravid said nonetheless.

* * *

The bright evening sunshine made shadows long and gently swept the farmyard with them. The little house stood in silence and the table in Ukko and Rauni’s hall was laden with bread and cheese and fish - older and salted though, not from the lot they had fished up that day. As soona s they had sat down, Sven had spoken up to apologise for his words. Ukko cut him off.  
“Excuse me?” Sven asked, feeling honestly a little confused. Why would he be stopped from giving his apologies? Had he really angered the man so? He could feel his shoulders tensing a little.  
"Don't say that you’re sorry if you don't know what you are sorry for," Ukko said while he buttered a piece of bread with the soft cheese. “That never ends well.”  
“I am… I don’t think I,” Sven stumbled on his words. The old man looked up at Sven with a lift of his eyebrows and a little nod. There was no blame in his eyes. He just had that odd, soft but inquisitive look on his face.  
"You don’t have to think about apologising. It's all right. But next time I would want you to think a little. About that bitter tongue of yours,” the man said, and Sven was truly lost.

Don't apologise. Think a little.

He could do little else than stare at the headless fish on his plate for what felt like a very long time. After all the building tension knotting in his stomach throughout the day, an offhanded reply like that felt anticlimactic. Deflating.  
A little bit like staggering out of a hot sauna bath after too long a time of sitting in the heat. It was like his head was full with heavy, warm steam and all the strength melted from his limbs. His skin was prickling and his ears felt hot. He opened his mouth to say something, but all words fled his mind. He swallowed before nodding in reply. Perhaps it was better not to push the situation further downhill.

"All right," he repeated after Ukko. Rauni looked at him with a calm, questioning look, but he didn't really know what to say, so he just smiled and grabbed himself a piece of black bread as well. He heard Ukko take in a breath and suddenly couldn't bear the invasive look of his grey eyes anymore. The bread went back on the platter.  
"I want to thank you for the supper, but I will now... I have had a long week. And I fear I need to rest now. Good night," Sven said and climbed up, out of the space between the table and the long bench. He didn’t know what he had done - that was true, wasn’t it, he was apologising without knowing what for - and he didn’t know how to fix it. So he fled.  
He took his bowl and spoon and the small tin pint to the cool of the kitchen to scrub and wash them clean as quickly as he could. Even so he couldn't help overhearing talk from the hall. At the very least _was too heated_ , Ukko said, and _not very good either_ , Rauni replied, and something else.  
“Sven,” Ukko called out after him.  
Sven was almost certain that he would break something, so he just left the tableware to dry. It had to be clean enough by now. He didn't bother fetching shoes from the door and used the back door instead, jogging across the farmyard and over prickly grass and soft clover leaves, until he reached the stable and his room in the end inside it.

* * *

"I didn't think the talk I gave him was too heated."  
"It was not very good either. He knows he upset you, he was shaking when we were milking the goats."

“Sven,” Ukko called, if the boy would still listen. The sound of sloshing water stopped and the back door of the kitchen snapped shut.

"You men need to better your skills at talking to each other."  
"I'm not going after him if he wants to be alone."  
"Of course not. But you need to speak to him in the morning. He did really have a rough time before today, what with the lawman and the work and all."  
"Mm... I had thought to do the paper tonight. About him working here, for the lawman.”  
“Leave it for tomorrow.”

* * *

_It was bright and sunny enough to blind, but there was warmth as well. She was bright and sunny, and he couldn’t help but smile at her._  
_He couldn’t recall a name or a face, but there was something gentle in her answering smile when she held his hand._  
_The day was long and the air was still, sweet with a scent of flowers he knew, somehow, but was unable to name._  
_He was sorry. So sorry that it ached inside his chest and throat. He didn’t know what he had done, but he knew that he had wronged her._  
_Her hands were so soft and warm in the clumsy and cold hold of his own. He tried to keep his hold as delicate as he could, but it felt inadequate. He shouldn’t have touched her at all._

_The ravens perched atop her both shoulders. His hold on her warm hands slipped._

He woke up to discomfort, sweat had glued his hair against his neck and forehead in the hot and stifling air of the stable room. He heard the mare moving outside, heard the goat bells and the morning birds, and still didn’t know where he was.  
The dusty corners of greyed wood were familiar, and when Sven finally sat up, he didn’t know why he had expected anything different when he opened his eyes. ( _Tall windows, stars glittering behind a bright blue veil of morning sky, long curtains of red and gold -_ ) He stripped off the wet, sweat-soaked shirt he had slept in and unwrapped the bandages around his palms. There was no longer a mark left from the blisters.  
He felt tired and a little dizzy. Must have been the heat. And if he felt uncomfortable when he walked through the dim barn and past some sleepy goats, the warm morning sunshine outside was even worse.

“You’re up,” Rauni said when he entered the kitchen. He nodded slowly and tried to stagger past her to look for a clean shirt in the linen closet. He pulled it over his head and stayed still for a moment, leaning his forehead against the closet door.  
“Could you stir the porridge, Sven,” she told him and he nodded, taking the offered spoon. Rauni disappeared to continue with other morning chores and he stayed in front of the stove, trying to alternate between hands so that one wouldn’t melt off completely in the heat.  
“Good morning,” Ukko grumbled when he hauled an armful of firewood inside through the back door. Sven turned around to look at him and cleared his throat.  
“Good morning,” he said for lack of anything better. Ukko crouched down to pile the pieces of firewood along the door-side wall and Sven couldn’t help but freeze and stare at the man. Should he have offered his help? He couldn’t just keep stirring the porridge and not say a thing, could he?  
“You’re thinking very loudly, Sven, I can hear your huffing past my own,” Ukko said and straightened up, “And I am an old man. What is it?” he asked, and it was so blunt and so sudden that at first Sven couldn’t hear the calm and good-natured tone behind the words.  
“Sorry, I was just… it was very childish of me to rush off like that,” Sven forced out and turned back towards the stove. It wasn’t much of an escape when Ukko came beside him and peered over to the pot.  
“You’re apologising again. I think you can carry that to the table already,” he said and Sven almost shook his head in response to the first thought. He quickly changed it to nodding and picked up the pot with a towel that was hanging next to the stove.

Sven could feel Ukko staring at him when he put the porridge down on the table, when he fetched bowls and spoons and cups, when he wiped his hands dry…  
“What is it?” he asked Ukko, looking out of the window to avoid his grey eyes, and sat down across him. There was a short silence.  
“What did Valto say to you to get you to fight him?” Ukko asked. He sounded almost curious and Sven looked at him again. The man leaned back and rubbed at his bearded jaw, lifting a brow.  
“He insulted me,” Sven said. It didn’t seem to be enough.  
“What did he say?” Ukko asked him again, and Sven sighed softly.  
“That I look funny,” he said. Ukko tilted his head and a new wrinkle appeared between his brows. Rauni came in through the front door and Sven huffed out another sigh. “And that I am a liar,” he admitted, looking out of the window again.  
“Mm. I don’t think that you are,” Ukko said and leaned his elbows against the table to look at him more closely. “You wouldn’t be so honest if you were. It was not childish to leave when I was being an inconsiderate old ram, it was wise, and I am sorry for being so blunt. And I am glad that you wished to right your error,” the old man said and laced his fingers together to lean his chin on them. It surprised Sven, and he didn’t know what to say. Ukko was apologising to him now, and also accepting his apologies, and was telling him that _he was honest_ , and that he was _wise_. It didn’t make any sense. Rauni sat down beside him and looked at the both of them with a hint of a smile on her thin lips.  
Sven suddenly realised that he had no idea how old the two of them actually were. In the bright morning light that cut across their faces from the window he could have almost sworn that they were statues of some ancient kingdom.  
Rauni served them the porridge, Ukko poured them water. He nodded his thanks.

“I wrote down the paper for the lawman last night. Do you think you can sign it?” Ukko asked after they had all eaten.  
“He is asking if you had time to look at the futhark with the other sons,” Rauni smiled.  
“...we did look at the letters, yes, but I don’t think I could still spell anything correctly,” Sven replied, even though admitting it was uncomfortable. He would have lied if he didn’t knpw that he would have had to prove himself soon. “Could I practice it a few times at first? You could see that I get it right.”  
“Of course,” Rauni said as if the question was completely unnecessary. “Do you trust me and Ukko to read it?” she asked as she ushered Ukko away to get the pens and papers.  
“The… contract?” Sven asked and looked up when the man returned. It was true - he had no way to know what it was that he was supposed to sign, even if Ukko’s hand was a lot less sharp and rushed than the lawman’s had been.  
“Yes. We mainly listed up some tasks that you have already been doing. You’re a great help around the yard,” Ukko said.  
“If you wish for someone else to read it, just to be sure, we could row up to Hestey. It’s the island you can see when you look West from behind the sauna,” Rauni told him and peered down to reach Sven’s eyes from where he had got lost in studying the paper. “They have a plough boy and a herder girl there for this summer, who would surely read the contract through for you. It won’t take long.”  
He sat in silence for a while.  
“There is no need. The least I can do after all that you have done for me is to trust you in this,” Sven said and smiled a little. “Just read it to me and give me something so I can try out the letters.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it has been ages since I updated this. But I'm not dead! I've just had too many loose ends to tie right now with this plot and I almost felt like I was losing the main thread for a while, but I feel like now I know where to turn.  
>  ~~The ending sounds suspiciously like a cliffhanger oops~~


	19. Midsummer Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes people do other things than mere work, even if the occasions are rare. If firelight and wild flowers are involved, there's likely an old sort of magic at hand too.  
> Would you like to do something tonight?

Sunshine pierced through little gaps between the logs of the opposite wall, stinging his eyes, and Sven had no idea if it was early or late, since the sun always seemed to be up before him. He woke up feeling sluggish, and covered in sweat even though his blanket was lying on the dusty floor and the side room was as cool as the rest of the barn.  
It was the second day in a row now, and if he had had the energy to walk further than the house, he could have tried to take a quick swim in the sea to cool off. He could hardly stand up as it was, so he just staggered to the house, stepped in, and knocked softy on the doorway of the hall.

“Hello?” he asked, and immediately regretted opening his mouth, since his voice was thick  
and groggy. Ukko looked up from a bunch of twigs he had on his lap and in his hands and nodded his greetings. He was humming a tune of some sort, but not loudly enough for Sven to catch it. Not one of Arvi’s songs.

“I…” Sven started before he had to suppress a loud yawn, “I’m feeling rather… sick,” he managed to say after some blinking, and admitting it out loud surprised even himself. He truly was feeling horrible. Ukko looked up again, but his hands didn’t pause where he was twisting the leafy branches together. The heady scent of fresh birch leaves was a welcome change to the smell of sun-warmed grass outside.  
“Do you think it’ll pass with a glass of water?” Ukko asked with his familiar calm note.  
“I don’t know,” Sven said, honestly, and took a few breaths to think it through. He had no idea what he was down with, and he couldn’t really say if he had ever… “Do _you_ think it’ll pass with a glass of water?” he asked Ukko instead. The old man hummed with a considering note.  
“I do hope it does. Today the sun stays in her nest, and I had hoped that we might go to Cattle isle with the folk on Hestey to burn the bonfire with them,” he said eventually, and added, “And in case you were wondering, Sven, Rauni wanted to go check the goats and the mare already. She still hasn’t foaled and we’re getting a bit worried. If the filly is born late, she won’t have enough grass to grow properly before winter.”

“What?” Sven asked after a long while of staring at Ukko and his bunched twigs blankly. The man looked up again and shook his head a little.  
“Midsummer. The longest day of the year. The first half of the year is over and we can burn away all bad luck that’s left of it,” he said, and smiled behind his beard. “Mostly it just means burning trash, but magic does flow stronger tonight.”  
“Oh,” Sven answered, rather unintelligently, and gave a little nod. “So if I didn’t have to…?”  
“No, we’re not working today. No more than what has to be done. No one will,” Ukko nodded and tightened the knot he made with a twisted birch twig around the rest of the bunch. “You can rest, if you’re feeling ill, for most of today. Then we will go to Cattle isle and spend the night there. I’m making these for bathing tonight, for the big sauna there,” he told Sven and motioned towards a pile of finished birch-bunches. “Though if you could help me gather up some flammable old things for the bonfire in the afternoon, I’d be glad.”  
“I hope that this will pass,” Sven said and tried to smile a little. “It sounds wonderful. I’ve never spent midsummer before,” he said. Ukko smiled and nodded.  
“Wash your face, take a piece of bread and go back to sleep, then. I will wake you up when you can help Rauni with lunch,” he said. Sven nodded and did as he was told.

* * *

Attempting to sleep had been useless at best, but staying away from working in the sun had nevertheless been good. A short downpour of rain had left the earth damp and smelling fresh, and took away some of the heat, so by lunchtime Sven was feeling considerably better. He washed his face and Rauni told him to dress up in the fine emerald-green shirt that they had found him with.  
“It’s polite to dress up pretty when you celebrate something with others. You can bet that everyone on Cattle island will be putting on their finest shirts and skirts,” she said, and seeing as she was wearing an embroidered blouse of pearly white he hadn’t seen before, he couldn’t really say no. The shirt was softer than he remembered.  
Sven helped Ukko pile up some old fence poles and thoroughly worn wooden slippers while Rauni gathered all the birch to bring to the boat with them. Sven offered to row, at least as long as there was still strength in his arms for the evening.

“I have to warn you, Sven, so you don’t get surprised,” Rauni said. The sounds of forest birds echoed across the water as he pulled on the oars.  
“Of what?” Sven asked. Ukko seemed equally puzzled when Rauni’s expression turned strange, and it took Sven a moment to see that she was holding back a wide smile.  
“There will be naked girls running in the wheat fields and rolling down the hill behind the sauna,” she said. Ukko let out a long sigh, Sven fumbled with the oars.  
“...what?” he asked slowly, not sure if he heard correctly or if Rauni was telling a very strange joke.  
“It’s a tradition,” she said, completely serious despite smiling, and she was looking straight at him. It was probably best to nod once in understanding and continue rowing quietly.  
“It’s a tradition to go running in the fields, naked?” he asked with a frown, unable to help himself. The topic was strange and Ukko was shaking his head.  
“For unmarried girls, yes,” Rauni agreed. “It gives them more väki and luck for love affairs,” she explained, and the look she gave here was even more unreadable.  
“A very strange tradition,” Sven replied.  
“It is, yes.”  
“Don’t get too excited, she’s exaggerating,” Ukko said and looked at Rauni pointedly, but smiled nonetheless. A much firmer shake of his beard was aimed at Sven, when he said: “It’s just one in a set of old charms.”  
“All I am saying is that there will be girls. Helga, that little Terhi from Hestey and also their daughter, Einar’s daughter, perhaps the milkmaid that stopped by cattle island in the spring, what was her name…” Rauni listed and looked at the islands that drifted past them as Sven kept rowing. “Shame that poor Disa is working tonight, I hear, now that the lawman has his frouva here.”  
“The lawman is married?” Sven asked, and yes, perhaps it was a poorly veiled attempt at changing the topic, but he hadn’t heard of a family until now. Despite his best attempts a calloused fisherman’s finger was pointed firmly at his face.  
“Sven, I want you to know, that whatever Rauni is trying to say, I will not have a pregnant girl knocking on my door in a year’s time,” Ukko said. Sven pulled the oars a few times before he almost dropped them to the sea.  
“What?” he asked in alarm. How was this about him? Rauni waved a hand in front of her husband to get him to put his hand down.  
“Shush, he’s just a grumpy old man,” she said, and Sven nodded. Ukko tilted his head expectantly, and Sven nodded for that, too.

_Rolling naked in a rye field, a wheat field and a barley field will give you luck in finding a rich groom for the future. Running across nine rye fields with nothing but a red belt around your waist will ensure that your future groom is waiting at the end of the ninth field._

“Sven!” Eero hollered from on top of the woodland path that led to the shore and waved to them. Sven raised his arm in a mirroring gesture. The boat groaned a little as they hit the gravel of the shoreline, and Sven jumped off to tie it to a tree. Ukko had to come and help him with the knot, but he had it almost right this time.  
“Arvi, did you hear, Sven is here!” Eero was yelling, so most likely there were people already waiting for them  
“That I am! Tell everyone that Ukko and Rauni have arrived,” Sven called back to him and Eero nodded. “We will be there in a moment, we have the birch twigs too!”  
“Great!” the boy replied and ran off.

Einar and his wife were giving instructions around the yard of the common hall. Young, spry birches were laid against the house on either side of the door and a few wide tables had been carried outside so everyone could fit there comfortably. Eero and Arvi were hoisting one to place, Hilmar and Elmer worked with another, and there were also many people Sven didn’t recognise. He put down the fence poles he carried when they got past the gate, the oak and the big rock.  
“Lovely to see you again, frouva. The midsummer flower,” Einar hummed softly behind his white beard as he came to greet them, and kissed the back of Rauni’s hand. Ukko looked at Sven suspiciously from the corner of his eye, arms full of tied birch twigs.  
“Oh, you…” Rauni laughed and new wrinkles appeared in the corners of her eyes when she laughed.  
“Einar, knock it off, your wife is over there and I the husband am also right here,” Ukko grumbled good-naturedly, accompanied by a lot of rustling from the leaves in his arms.  
“Leave that old fool be and help me and the girls with setting the table, will you, Ukko. Sven, you can put those poles in the pile up the hill where there’s no grass, someone can show you where,” Einar’s wife called out for them with hands on the belt of her long red-striped skirt.  
“Mm. Don’t you steal my wife after calling me a thief,” Einar chuckled and turned around, one of his bushy white eyebrows lifting in an amused manner. Sven was still feeling strange under the look of the old man’s sharp eyes when he looked at him, but he nodded his greetings. Einar tilted his head in return, turning around slowly and continuing on his way back towards the festive preparations. Sven didn’t know what to make of the slow, strange way Einar moved or the way he looked at him, but now, when he spoke gently with his raspy voice, and seemed to be in higher spirits, Einar seemed a bit less unsettling.

“We’ll start the fire for sauna, all right?” Eero called to his parents, with Elmer and a few young men Sven couldn’t recognise trailing behind him and laughing loudly at something. Sven threw the fence wood into the pile that was soon to become a bonfire and joined them. Arvi clapped him on the shoulder.  
“Of course! And you boys can go and bathe first, too. Start the bonfire after you come out!” Maire told Eero and the rest of them. A few older men and women gathered to lay food on the tables.  
“You're dressed up well, are you,” Arvi grinned and clapped him on the back. He introduced Sven to everyone as they walked to the low log sauna with a mossy roof, but Sven couldn’t really bother remembering the names. Someone working on Hestey with sheep and cattle, another one doing farm chores with Arvi’s father, two red-headed sons of a small house with the largest herd of cows on the islands. The cows were red-headed as well, someone told him, with white backs and bellies.

_Trees speak on the midsummer night. Rowan and birch will protect your house and rouse your love and power. Oak gives eternal love, eternal riches and eternal luck. An old pine will tell you of your future and the fir and the juniper will give you strength for the winter._

After Arvi had raged for the fire to stay lit for what seemed like ages, the stove room of the sauna started to heat up. Ukko’s birch twigs were left to soak in warm water when the men stripped their clothes and got inside the steaming room. Sven chose to stay on the lowest bench, since it didn’t heat up quite as badly as the two above. The hot steam still scorched his ears when water was thrown on the stove. They were all shoved against each other like salted herring, and the smell of hot stone, soaked birch, steam and sweat filled the room.  
“Stop hitting me! I can do that myself,” someone barked when Hilmar threw around hearty thwacks with his bathing birches from the top bench. Sven managed to dodge the attacks for the most part by pressing his head down. Someone kicked his back softly with his heel, and Svem nearly grabbed the foot of the attacker before recognising his voice.  
“Are you feeling hot, Sven?” Arvi asked with a loud horse-like laugh, “You’re looking a little red!” he said. Sven glared at him.  
“I think you are. Shouldn’t you go outside for a bit?” Elmer grinned. Eero seemed much less keen on talking than his brother, and much more interested in sitting silently and letting the steam bathe him. Sven appreciated that and kept his eyes aimed forward, looking at the stove where the flames and coals blinked red every now and then.  
He had only met Elmer once before. What right had the man to make fun of him? Arvi he knew, would even consider a friendly face, but Elmer was someone who had just appeared out of nowhere.  
“Would you like to go outside with me to settle it?” Sven asked blandly. The comment prompted a few sharp laughs and exclamations.  
“Hey, a true man of men sits on the highest bench. Like I would need to fight you to prove that,” Elmer laughed and Sven got a harsh, tingling thwack of leaves and soft twigs against the skin of his back.  
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I think I might be more of a ladies men,” he barked back over his shoulder.

There was a short pause during which Sven tried to keep his mouth firmly shut, before all but Elmer bursted out in loud, roaring laughter.  
“You’ve been beaten, Elmer, that’s it!”  
“Would you care to show us, Sven, how you are with the ladies?”  
“Or would Elmer like to show how to be a man?”  
“All right! All right, enough!” Elmer snapped with a forced laugh of his own, and there was a lot of shoving on the highest bench. “You had your laugh, Sven wins!”  
“I thought you wanted to pick a fight” he smirked back, and something in Elmer’s face hardened even if he still smiled and nodded.

“Are you getting ready in there, boys? It’s the men’s turn already, and the ladies want theirs too!” someone called through the door. One of the redheads got up to open the door to a sliver, but Sven couldn’t see who it was from where he was sitting. He didn’t recognise the voice.  
“And you’re making an awful lot of noise in there!” the person behind the door said.  
“Don’t fuss, old man! We’ll be out soon!” Arvi yelled, and perhaps the man outside was his father.  
“Yuh, we will be out soon,” the redhead repeated and closed the door.

_If you throw your birch leaves up on the roof of the sauna after bathing, the direction the cut ends of the handle point is where you’ll find your future spouse._

“Throw that sawhorse up here!” Sven called from where he was standing next to the mound of wood and other burnables. Eating and drinking had been enough to keep the fatigue after sauna from taking over.  
“Throw that sawhorse?” a younger-looking man, probably the herder-boy, yelled back. “It weighs a ton - you come here and throw it yourself!” Sven let out a long sigh and started to measure his steps down the bonfire cliff. It hadn’t been a lot that he had drunk, but it wasn’t mere kvass either and he didn’t know yet if he could trust himself with stronger ale. Better to be safe than sorry.  
“Let me take it,” he grumbled when he walked to the pile of remaining junk.  
“No way are you going to hoist it up like that,” the kid snorted. Sven set his jaw, picked up the sturdy, moldy sawhorse and started back towards the bonfire.  
“Do you want to bet on it?” he called over his shoulder. The boy yelled back something incomprehensible and clearly annoyed. Sven grinned to himself.

“Hey, hey hey, wait. I think the girls just got out of the sauna to cool off…” Arvi tried to hush them while he listened closely and fumbled around the firewood with tinders.  
“Yeah? My sister’s in there,” Hilmar huffed as he helped the herder-boy pile Fairholm’s old fence poles up against the rest of the bonfire. Sven brushed his hands against his trousers to get the feeling of rotten wood off his palms.  
“So is theirs, what does that mean? There’s also a lot of girls that are _not_ a cousin of mine,” Arvi snorted and waved a hand in Eero and Elmer’s direction. The brothers were sitting on a log some steps away from the fire and talking, Eero with his hands moving excitedly as he explained something, Elmer with a few firm nods every now and then.  
Sven didn’t know why he was still staring at the two of them.  
“Where are the flint and the firesteel? I need them to get this thing burning!” Arvi huffed, “The lawman probably has a magic solution to that as well!”  
“I’ll look for them down there. I heard he has his wife over now,” Sven said and stumbled back down from the little cliff.  
“He does?” Arvi asked with a little grin. “She is a handsome one. I’d steal her away from him any day if I only had a horse to ride there,” he said and reached out for the fire tools Sven pushed to his hands.  
“You’ll never have a horse, Arvi, you’re as poor as anyone can be. Not a horse she’d like, in any case,” Hilmar snorted.

_If the bonfire sparks up a flame quickly, the coming harvest will be a good one. High flames promise sunshine, low flames speak of rain. The ashes and coal that are left from the fire can tell you of next years happenings and the smoke can reveal secrets of your luck in love._

All the young girls had indeed run off from the sauna and disappeared to a field to the south of the farmyard, laughing and singing old spells, with nothing but ribbons in their plaited hair and their red woven belts around their waists. The pale light still spoke of daytime even though it was starting to be night, and Hilmar and Elmer were getting drunk enough to start singing a lewd song even without Arvi’s help. Something about colts drinking from wells, which even Sven - with his limited knowledge of a story the song was apparently based on - could hear was really a story of something else entirely.

The bonfire was in full roar and the older folk had joined them in sitting around the fire when the girls returned with wreaths of flowers in their hair - clothed, this time, even though Sven could agree with a tall brown-eyed lad that it was something of a shame. Talking soon turned to singing which turned to dancing. Sven looked around him with a little smile, but he didn’t really know what to think.  
Everyone knew each other, but some hadn’t seen each other in some time. It was midsummer, and for some reason that alone was good enough a reason for such joy and festivity. Why celebrate something that was now beginning to fade away? Based on what everyone had said, the future harvest and winter seemed unsure and hard.

“Dark maiden, Fair maiden, tell me, tell me, when will the men come courting, courting!” every man sang around the open fire, and Arvi’s voice was the loudest. Ukko, Rauni and Cattle island’s farmheads were already deep in their own conversations, and hardly noticed when there was a sudden ring of dancers around the fire.  
“The black one of fifth day, on fifth day, my brother on washing day, washing day, my own love on sunday, on sunday!” the girls called back a young blonde woman was twirling Eero around and laughing, and she did look like she could have been his older sister. The ring sped up and Sven looked on in silence.

“Dance with me,” Helga told him firmly when she sat by his side on the log. Her dust-brown hair was still untied and damp from the sauna, falling heavily around her angular jaw, and she wore a thick crown of wild flowers. Sven shook his head a little as he listened to the loud chanting of a song he hadn’t heard before.  
“I don’t know any of these dances,” he told Helga and gave her a little smile. She rolled her eyes and took a firm grip of his wrist to pull him up.  
“I do, so I can show you how it’s done,” she said and dragged him to the ring, linking their arms. Before Sven had a chance to say no, she was dragging him along, planting the flower crown on his head instead, and showing him the fairly simple steps.  
“Dark maiden, Fair maiden, tell me, tell me, what will we serve them, serve them?” they chanted again, and whenever words were repeated, Helga pointed at him and articulated clearly to get Sven to say them too. She shoved him when the direction of the chain changed, and pulled on his hand when they went back again. The arch of her brows was as steep as usual, but she was smiling, too.  
“The black one gets kale soup, kale soup,” Helga laughed while dragging him around by elbow, and looked pointedly at Sven’s tar-black hair, “my brother gets rye bread, rye bread, my own love gets fresh pies, fresh pies!”  
“Dark maiden, Fair maiden, tell me, tell me, what will they drink here, drink here?”

_Jumping over the burning bonfire will bring you luck for the next harvest and for winning a girl’s attentions - burning your feet means that the crop is ruined and that the girl thinks ill of you. Who dares to jump after two hours of burning is the bravest man in the village._

Arvi was starting to get very drunk at some point, and he and his father ended up having a rather heated shouting match. It had to be broken off by the rest of their relatives - Helga, Hilmar and their father and mother - before shoves would turn to anything worse. They looked very similar, with thick brows and brown eyes, stocky figures to match, but Arvi had a less rounded face, and his father Arne was greying and missed a few fingers in his left hand.  
“I think this is enough drinks for the evening,” Einar mused, and somehow his mild voice rose above all else. It was most likely not the first time something like this happened.

“Are you all right? I could... bring you a cup of water,” Sven asked when Arvi was sitting back down again.  
“No, no, I’m all right. Don’t you worry, Sven,” he answered and hugged him tightly with one arm. Whatever Arvi was going to say died off when one of the redheads took a long pole and launched himself over the fire.  
“Did you know, Sven, I’m really really good at that,” he said and staggered up, “You have to see. You have to try it!”  
“No, no no no,” Sven rushed to answer with a smile and pulled Arvi back down. “I would strongly advise against you… doing that,” whatever it was, “right now. Perhaps you should rest a little,” he said as calmly as he could, and hoped for his dear life that Arvi would listen to him. What if he wouldn’t? Would the man run into the bonfire?   
(Feasts at golden tables and someone sitting and shouting next to him, _no more ale for you_ , freezing winds and a pause and something horribly dangerous all around, _stop, and think._ And it was gone.)  
“Mmh,” Arvi groaned, and a rush of relief coursed through Sven when he nodded. “Maybe you’re right. You still talk stupid, though.”

“Let him sleep. He’s going to be grumpy when he wakes up in any case,” Helga said and sat down next to him, when Arvi finally slumped against the log and started snoring. Sven let out an agreeing sound and looked out on the sea across the hilltop they were gathered on. The sun was close to setting, but still couldn’t quite find her place in the horizon. Helga was looking at him with a little smile, the firelight tickling the hem of her long black skirt and painting her white blouse golden.  
“What?” Sven asked carefully when her staring didn’t end. She shrugged a little and held back a wide smile. It was odd. Sven had thought her more stoic.  
“You’re still wearing my crown, are you not?” she asked with a grin that showed her teeth. Sven glanced up to where he saw petals on the edges of his vision, and then back at Helga. He couldn’t quite say what she was trying to gain with the question, but she seemed content and amused enough.  
“I think I am,” he said and gave her a smile. “What did you crown me to be?” he asked.  
“A summer prince, perhaps. We did talk with the girls,” Helga told him and looked to where two of her friends were talking to each other and hiding their laughs rather poorly. Somehow Sven could feel that their grins had something to do with him sitting there.  
“About what?” he asked Helga. One of the two young women sitting across the bonfire waved to them, and his nod had them laughing again.  
“About how pretty you are,” Helga said and shoved his knee lightly, like it should have been obvious by then. Sven looked at her in surprise, somewhat taken aback by the unexpected compliment. “And I wagered that you have been with several women already.”  
“Have I?” Sven asked and blinked, reduced to parroting her words. Helga leaned back and smiled a wonky little smile.  
“I don’t know yet,” she said almost slyly, and her lips were as red as berries.  
“Neither do I,” he said.  
“Would you like to find out?” Helga asked.

_If you tie together seven wild flowers from seven different fields, all picked on the midsummer night, and put them under your pillow, you can meet your future spouse in your dreams. As many times as the cuckoo calls will there be years before you’re married._

Helga grinned as she led them away from the fire, grabbing her skirts as she ran across the yard with Sven in her tow. The little building was a hay storage, and inside it was cool and dry, and dim in the pale midnight hues of the sun that didn’t quite set. They stumbled inside hastily, and small droplets of rain started to hammer the earth. Helga was dragging him by the tips of his fingers in between her own, her smaller hands soft in his grasp and her arms firm when she guided him. Sven kissed her palms when Helga sank them down behind a tall pile of hay, and the flowers were discarded soon. She kissed him with both of her hands on his cheeks and straddled him where he lay in the prickling hay.

“You do know what to do, don’t you?” she asked.  
“...I would think so, yes,” he answered.  
“Good. Go on, then, Sven.”

Helga had soft, warm thighs beneath the skirt that was quickly rucked up to her hips, just as his trousers were soon shoved down. Her skin was dotted with a few dark freckles here and there when Helga took off her blouse, and his shirt followed. Her hands wandered and her hips moved, and she laughed, a lot. It was contagious, and it was all very surreal.  
“They say that rain on a midsummer’s night tells of a wet end for the summer,” Helga chatted with a breathless whisper, and he truly couldn’t say where she got the topic for farming. He couldn’t answer anything proper either, lost in the feeling of her body against him, her thighs and hips beneath his fingers.

“I think you have been with women before,” she whispered when they lay together on the well-worn wooden floor of the hay room, listening to the drips and hisses of the shower outside.  
“And still none spring to mind that I could now compare to your beauty,” he said softly, feigning honesty as he leaned on his elbow, and she laughed.  
“Don’t push it. It was fun, but you were not _that_ good,” Helga said as she rolled away and sat up, propped against a hay pile to pull her blouse back on.  
“You were,” Sven said and grinned, and though he couldn’t say if he had always felt this good after having lain with someone, he did enjoy the way smiles seemed to flow.  
“Thank you,” Helga smiled, and there was a hint of amused pride in her voice. “But even though you’re clearly trying your best, I think I shall still wait for a wealthier husband a few more years.”  
“I think that you’re wise to do so,” he agreed. Helga made herself comfortable against the hay pile, snuggling comfortably under his arm, and he gave her back the crown of flowers from beside his head. She thanked him, and they stayed up for some time, listening to the summer birds and the fading rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we bring you a pause to the plot with a chapter full of nonsense.
> 
> Happy summer solstice (which was a few days ago) and Midsummer, which was celebrated the day before yesterday in Estonia (Jaanipäev) and last night in Sweden (Midsommar) and Finland (Juhannus)! So here, have a midsummer special in my strange folklore fic. Thank you for all the lovely comments on the last chapter!  
> Flower crowns are a Swedish Midsummer tradition. The little italicised snippets are old folklore spells from Estonia and Finland, some of which are still jokingly practiced today. (Not the running naked, though, because it's illegal to do that and all.) The longest days of the year were thought to amplify the magical properties of this world. Also, I had to deal with Loki's odd sort of virginity somehow. The night of love spells seemed as good as any. Helga is a real farm worker just like the dudes but I mean she is also a really cute lady so. You go girl!
> 
> Let's call this a nice little break before someslightly more serious business again. Let me know what you thought, I really love reading all comments ♥


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